The Tokyo Incident
by Cythieus
Summary: S.I.S. or "Shadow Investigation Squad" is headed up by Mitsuru in an effort to snuff of the different instances of Shadow activity around the the country of Japan. But they've never seen anything like Tokyo and she's having flashbacks to Port Island and Tartarus. Rise backs Mitsuru up and Joining them is Nanako Dojima, a girl on the cusp of adulthood who will do anything to help.
1. Chapter 1

The sky was strands of purple and blue swirled with black so that the colors bled together in a way that things in the real world didn't. This place looked like Tokyo down to the smallest detail at times, but with a sinister slant to things. It was usually night and overcast no matter the time of day or the weather, but the Mirror Universe was like that. It differed from iteration to iteration and location to location, but some of the rules remained the same.

There were Shadows, you fight them or they kill you. Your Persona was your Shadow bound to your soul by a yolk of sheer will. And not everyone was able to do what they did, so it was up to them to protect what they could and beat back the darkness.

Their leader had made a mistake in the past, one that had cost them lives. It wouldn't be repeated here.

Small puddles of water rested in the divots in the concrete near the corner. It would be okay to rest here. Pressing the butt of her spear into the wet pavement, Nanako bent down to stretch her back. With her free hand she pressed the mouth piece closer to her face, Miss Kirijo said it was unnecessary, the equipment could pick the sound up, she still did it anyway.

"They're quiet tonight," she said between breaths. "I've only seen a few of the little guys."

Kirijo's voice was in her ear loud and clear. "Don't get complacent. We haven't figured out the pattern for this event yet. We really don't know much of anything about what's driving them this time."

It turned out that this was a common thing, places would become infected with shadows. Sometimes the deaths surrounding it just went unsolved and the event stopped on it's own. Other times the event gets wildly out of control. Like Port Island. Like Inaba, where Nanako was from.

"I know, I know." Nanako said. "You've been pushing me extra hard-over doing it could get me hurt too, you know?"

Something whipped through the air near her head and she brought the spear up above her head, bending down to cover herself from the blow. The metal shaft of the spear clanked against her attacker's weapon.

She was strong enough to use her back and shoulders to repel the attack, but in doing so she lost footing and tumbled to the ground. The Shadow before her was in the guise of a vicious looking knight riding atop an angry eyed steed.

From her place on the ground Nanako muttered a single word: "Persona." A swirling double helix of color welled up around her. "Persephone!" A beautiful maiden with billowing auburn curls and a crown woven of leaves sprung out of the shimmering aura that surrounded Nanako and launched a heavy wind attack that bounced the knight away from her and crumpled it and the steed into the street in a heap.

Persephone vanished and Nanako climbed to her feet, resting her weight on the spear. She paused to dust the butt of her skirt off and situate the rest of her clothing.

Miss Kirijo came over the earpiece. "Are you okay, Nanako?"

"I'm fine. More than I can say for our friend here." She lifted the spear in one hand and twirled it expertly one time. "Sorry, buddy, I happen to remember your weakness."

The creature was a few short feet out, but that was the thing about being a Persona user in the Mirror Universe. It made you stronger. You could jump higher, had better stamina, and could fight better. You were like an anime character. Or better yet, you were in the most wire-work heavy Wuxia movie you could think of. Nanako crouched into a quick squat and bounded up into the air, kicking off the light pole that lay dormant on the corner for an extra boost. As she reached the pinnacle of her leap she called out. "Persona!"

Persephone appeared feet below her and rushed down to slam into the knight and horse to hold them in place. As Persephone made contact, she shattered into nothingness and Nanako clasped her legs against sides of the spear and her feet rested on a small pair of nubs three-quarters of the way down the shaft.

She tore down through the air driving the head of the spear deep into knight's back and down through the horse. Black and red plumes of smoke erupted from the wound, spraying out with a hiss. The Shadow vanished leaving only the concrete to hold up the spear. Nanako hopped off and began wiggling it free.

A familiar voice sounded from nearby. "A little cocky, aren't we Nanako-chan?" Rise Kujikawa was standing on the opposite street corner dressed as fabulous as you'd expect THE Rise Kujikwa to be dressed. There was a pair of sunglasses on her head and she was holding some kind of fancy health juice. She looked just a naturally flawless and effortless as she always had.

"You were watching the whole time; I guess Miss Kirijo doesn't quite think I'm ready to be on my own, then?" asked Nanako.

Rise crossed the street, taking a sip of her drink midway through the crossing and she stopped in front of Nanako. Rise was still substantially taller than her and had grown quite a bit in her second year of high school. Though Rise treated their height difference like it had been when they first met; she did this thing where she squatted down and rested her arms on her upper legs. It made Nanako feel like a child all over again.

"I know that's not it. Mitsuru knows first hand how dangerous all of this can be. Two of her friends were...taken from her by this."

"And I'm almost as old now as you were the first time you jumped into the TV," Nanako said.

"I was kidnapped and forced into it." Rise said. She stood back to her full height, looking at Nanako with a little smirk. "I'm not saying that you're too young to do this, Nanako-chan and I'm not even saying that we know best. We just want to make sure that you can handle yourself and that if need be you can go on without us if that's a thing that has to happen."

Nanako's expression soured as she considered a world with out Rise and Mitsuru Kirijo - she considered how badly Yukari had been hurt last time. That's what this was really about. They were drilling her because of what happened to Yukari.

SIS, or the Shadow Investigation Squad, as they called themselves, was really only the three of them, Chie Satonaka, and Yukari Takeba (when she was well enough to get back in the fight). They could be small and mobile and use Rise's travels to mask their own when they needed to. A lot of that travel took place without Nanako, but maybe once she was out of school.

"I understand," Nanako said.

Rise patted her shoulder. "Mitsuru, any sign that this is anything other than a garden variety outbreak like the others?"

There's a long silence. "There's a mega structure below the city, it's almost like, well it reminds me of the tower from Port Island..."

"Do you think there's a risk that it's related to the Avatar of-" Rise was cut off by Mitsuru.

"There's no way. Nyx is leaving Earth alone as far as I can tell. This is similar, but different. Meet back at the room and we can look into it," she said.

"Come on Nanako," Rise said and with a press of a button they were dropped back into the rainy, late evening Tokyo streets.

* * *

The air conditioner rattled in a way that made sleep hard to come by. This life of holidays on the road with SIS and unfamiliar ceilings was never going to be the kind of thing that she got used to. Nanako missed her small house back in Inaba sometimes, she missed the fresh country air along the rain spillway where she used to go with Chie to practice.

This hotel room air was dry and lifeless. It cooled the sheets of the bed, but it was too much of a hassle to get up and mess with the thing. She drew the blankets up over her shoulder and covered her neck.

In the darkness of the room her mind kept playing the images of Yukari and that Shadow. There was no warning, nothing was particularly different about this Shadow. RIse had sensed a strange strength in it, but it didn't seem to be more dangerous than a lot of the creatures they had face.

Nanako could still feel the warmth of Yukari's blood running down the side of her stomach and pooling in her lap as she cradled Yukari's body.

Behind them the ring of Miss Kirijo's saber and Rise's shielding and directions were drowned out by the moment. Nanako could have sworn that she felt Yukari's life slipping away. Yukari was recovering in the hospital now. But it had been the most serious thing to happen since they started this.

Nanako shifted in the bed, shoving her fist into her pillow to fluff it. She was sixteen now and an orphan. Her father died two years back from a heart condition and the Kirijo Group's current head and grand daughter of their founder, Mitsuru, approached her with an offer for a scholarship.

Of course, this scholarship program was fighting Shadows.

Sure, there were things that she wanted from life. She remembered the type of high school she saw on television and the little snippets of American TV that she caught. Everyone was always involved in interesting things. Her cousin had done so much in that year he lived with them. There was milestones and class rankings and boys and kissing.

Nanako rolled onto her side, wrapping her arms around the thin frame of her shoulders. The Mirror World was dangerous, but over there it seemed safer than navigating the real world. The rules over there were clear.

* * *

Rise sat on the corner of Mitsuru's desk with the tiny bit of green tea extract papaya juice that she had left. Mitsuru hated when someone sat on her desk, but had given up on telling Rise what to do. "So do you sense it?" Mitsuru asked.

There was a beat of time where Rise turned to look Mitsuru in the face, narrowing her eyes at the woman who was her superior and the more experienced of the two of them. Then she smiled an spoke. "Of course I do. My Persona was made for sensing these things-it was the OG navigator and sensor." Rise used a pair of, what Mitsuru knew to be English letters, she didn't understand their context here and ignored it.

"How deep does it go?"

"That's the scary part," Rise said. She was dressed exactly like one would expect Rise to dress in a casual setting, but she entered the Mirror World like this. Open toed, short heeled shoes, white capri pants, a babydoll tee with the name of some foreign band plastered on it. "I sense it as deep as I can sense. It goes down far and it seems like it's growing."

Mitsuru swept her red hair away from her face, pushing it over her shoulder. "Was it always there?" she asked.

Rise shrugged. "I sensed something the moment I came to town last week; that's why I called you. I didn't realize that it was a place and not a thing until just a few hours ago."

"I don't like it. This is much bigger than any of the previous random sightings of Shadows have been and the mental shutdown cases that were going on just a few months back feel like they're connected to that world and apathy syndrome."

"Yeah, but they stopped and this world is still here," Rise said.

Mitsuru slid a photo from under a stack of random papers on the hotel room desk, it was a print out of an assorted group of people cast mostly in silhouette, but there was enough light to catch glimpses of the curves of their masked faces and hints of their eyes. They were young. "The Phantom Thieves phenomena and the "Phan-Site" went live shortly before all the cases of this stopped. If I had to bet on it-"

Rise cut her off. "I was hoping they'd make an appearance, I bet their leader is kind of hot under that little party mask."

"I have questions about this heart stealing thing, among other things."

Rise shrugged. "Each little pocket of the Mirror World we've seen has variations of the rules. After all, we didn't have to jump in a TV to get here either."

"I'd say we go to this megastructure tomorrow afternoon and have a look around. Just on a clearly exploratory basis. I want to see what's growing beneath the Tokyo streets," Mitsuru said.

"You think it's like Tartarus and you're wondering," Rise paused to take a long drag from her straw. "If Nyx was at the top of that place then what's waiting for us in the depths of this one?"

Mitsuru often wondered if the growth of Rise's person had somehow made her psychic, but she wasn't about to confirm anything the woman said to her. "It's possible that the Phantom Thieves, if they're like us, haven't realized there's something below the city or that they have no ambition to explore the depths of that place."

"So we need to at least poke around down in...whatever this place is." Rise said.

"I was thinking we'd call it _Jahannam_ , it seems to fit the theme," Mitsuru suggested.

"Is there a theme?" Rise asked. She only waited a second before speaking again. "We should probably get some rest, especially if we want to make visiting hours at the hospital tomorrow." She hopped down off of the desk, tossed her juice cup into the trash and headed for the door.

"Right, I'll see you in the morning-I've got some stuff to finish up here."


	2. Chapter 2

Sunlight spilled through the split in the blinds of the rented room where Ken Amada sleeps. He lives in the attic apartment of a young couple and their daughter, but he keeps mostly to himself, choosing to eat takeout up here or have something at the university.

It's too early to do much and he hadn't planned on doing anything today except relaxing. He spent several minutes preparing a bowl of flavored tobacco for his hookah, a ginger-lemon mix, and he slowly smoked his way through it with the hose pressed close to his chest.

The ceiling fan overhead whipped the smoke into sweeping small clouds that scurried over the finished wood flooring of his room, but the haze of it could be seen all over the room. Koromaru slept on in the corner, breathing slow, steady breaths.

Ken would have preferred this type of day. He preferred not caring about the bigger picture and worrying over the fate of the world - these had been things that he had once come very face to face with. And after years of coming face to face with the reality of his own mortality, it was nice to finally live.

A pair of picture frames was flipped face down on the bedside table, Ken reached out and placed them upright again. The last time that he had talked to her before the injury had been in a series of fights. He played some of the text messages sent and received over in his head. He accused her of not knowing when to step away.

And their relationship was already on shaky ground. Ken wasn't sure how he had ended up with her in the first place. Yukari Takeba was a model, a famous actress, and had known him since he was in elementary school. She was four years older than him and things between them just sort of happened. Even when they were in the middle of all of it she still wondered if all of this was right, he accused her of looking for a reason to not be happy.

Then she went and signed up for Mitsuru's crusade and, what would you know, a few weeks later she's in a hospital.

He couldn't ignore her forever. A photo of them hugged together, her in her Phoenix Ranger Featherman Victory costume with the beach stretching down into the ocean in the background. Damn, he'd loved those Phoenix Ranger shows as a kid and now he was seeing a real Phoenix Ranger, or at least he had been.

"I made my feelings clear, right Koromaru?"

The albino Shiba Inu raised it's head up and blinked twice. He lowered his head back into the bed and covered his nose with his paws making a small grumbling noise.

"You're tired of hearing about Yukari. Well, yeah, I'm tired of thinking about her. Worrying about her..."

Koromaru doesn't move from his position and instead closes his eyes as if to go back to sleep.

Ken takes another pull on the hookah, clearing the chamber of smoke and pulling in fresh clouds. The sound of the water bubbling in the bottom chamber becomes more and more pronounced until he stops to exhale. "I better go see her." Ken sits up on the side of the bed to take another drag and shakes his head as he expels the smoke. She could have died and it really doesn't matter that they were fighting. He needs to show her that.

When the coals on the hookah died down Ken lays the hose across his bed and slips into his shoes. "Don't think you can come with, boy. No dogs in the hospital, even if they are geniuses."

It was a couple of train rides into the city, she was at the Tokyo Medical University Hospital since it had been the closest to the incident. They were also pretty good at keeping out the press in what a publicist for the movie studio had called a "mugging and stabbing."

There was a list of approved visitors and Ken happened to be on there despite what happened between them. He strolled through the security check point, giving them his name and ID without really stopping all of the way. He does go to the gift shop to pick something up before heading up to Yukari's floor. When he reached her room and knocked lightly at the open door he could hear her clear her throat. "Come in."

He stepped around the corner with his hands deep in his pockets and she sat up in the bed pulling her gown against the side of her body where she had been wounded. "Oh, Ken."

"Hey," he said with a wide smile. He pulled a fat little pink stuffed hamster out from behind his back and fanned it back and forth before leaning in to give it to her. He kisses her on the lips when he's close enough, only pausing for a moment before kissing her again.

"Your mouth tastes funny," she said as she took the little stuffed animals and tugged at its flap like little legs. "Does this mean you're not mad about my decision?"

Ken stood back to his full height and stared down into her big brown eyes. "No. It just means that you're your own person and you can make decisions. I won't always like all of them, but it doesn't mean that I don't like you..."

She ran her fingers along his arm. "It's sweet. You're worried about me. I'm okay though. Even now, I'm okay."

"Mitsuru described what happened pretty well, that Shadow tore into you," Ken got closer to her when he said the word "shadow" even though there would be no reason for anyone who might overhear him to be suspicious. He grabbed for her hand and wove his fingers between her thin fingers.

"Ken..." she broke away from his grasp and ran her hand up under the edge of his shirt to touch the side of his abdomen. "I'll be okay. It's just-your input means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me and I'd hate for this to drive a wedge between us."

Her hand was cold and she was trembling. "It won't," he said.

"Yukari, the nurse told me to come on in," Rise strutted into the room with a Junes department store bag clutched between the fingers of one hand and a pair of sunglasses dangling from the other. "I got you a little-oh, Ken. I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in here."

"It's okay Risette - sorry, sorry, Rise."

"Yeah. It's fine, really." Rise's mood had seemingly soured already. "Um, Mitsuru and Nana-chan are on their way up. We wanted to see you before we got things underway."

Yukari looked to Ken and then back at Rise. "What things underway?"

Rise handed the Junes bag to Yukari and gave Ken a quick one armed hug. "I guess I can just come right out with it because she seems a little freaked out by the whole thing. There's another Tartarus here or something like it. It's under the city and it seems to be still growing." Rise touched a hand to her chest. "I can feel it down there, even now."

"That doesn't make sense," Ken said. "We destroyed Tartarus and the Dark Hour, why would there be one here."

"Look, I never saw your Tartarus, so I didn't get any sense of the energy it gave off, but I've sensed palaces and they don't feel like this. It's full of Shadows and she doesn't think Nyx is back, but that situation is the closest thing to this by comparison."

Ken stepped away from the bed, throwing his arms back. "Our friend died to stop that, that thing. And now you want to go into another maze like that to see what kind of prize is at the bottom? Mitsuru hasn't learned anything since Port Island."

"Ken," Yukari said grabbing hold of his wrist.

"Let Ken speak," Mitsuru walked through the door with Nanako behind her. "He left to pursue school, an admirable endeavor, but I want to hear his expertise of the situation at hand, the very unique set of circumstances known to everyone in this room _except_ him. Please, enlighten us."

"It's my business when it involves my girlfriend," Ken said.

There was a stark moment of silence before Rise muttered. "Oh shit."

Mitsuru folded her arms and glanced off to the side, looking everywhere but at the two of them and that hospital bed. "Congratulations. I'm guessing that there's a reason I'm the last to find out about this?"

Nanako dropped back to lean against the wall next to the door, but said nothing.

"I was sure that you might find it inappropriate," Ken said. "It doesn't matter, I have to get to work." He looked back at Yukari like he might kiss her, but settled for brushing her hair back. As he was leaving the room he passed next to Mitsuru. "I care. I care about you and Yukari. Please reconsider this."

Mitsuru said nothing and after a long, silent moment Ken left.

* * *

There was a hush over the entire room after Ken left. Rise used this time to catch up on diligently going through different notifications on her phone. She treated random fan follows and retweets on Twitter like they had all of the gravitas of the actual situation in the room.

Despite what Mitsuru had said, she wasn't the only one who didn't know what was going on. Nanako was in the dark too. From the first time that she had met Ken, years ago, she had a crush on the strange slightly older boy who was out there fighting to save the whole of humanity. He was so fearless and, probably, the precursor for them thinking that she could even do this. Ken was in elementary school when he started, how could they turn her down?

There was more to it than that, she always kind of figured Ken had an eye for her too. He'd smile in her direction for no reason and he was so gentle with her. Then again, Yukari was, well, probably as big a star as Rise. Nanako was a white dwarf jammed between two super novas. How could there be any hope anyone would ever notice her?

"Yes, Rise. That three day old picture of a curry you made from some box-meal-by-mail company demands immediate Instagram attention. You knew about them, didn't you?" asked Mitsuru.

Rise finished making out the last of her hashtags. "I wouldn't say that I knew for sure. I just sensed a change. It's not something I could have put into words."

"How serious is it?"

Yukari folded her arms over her chest and was looking off toward the window, trying her best not to make eye contact.

"Well?"

"You know how he's a big fan of Phoenix Rangers Featherman R? I invited him to come by set one day and just hang out because he said he was going to be in town. And hanging out on set became dinner and that just, kind of, you know," she glanced at Nanako. "Transitioned into being s-e-x."

Rise pressed her phone down into her lap. "Mitsuru is right, this conversation needs my full attention."

"Nanako is old enough to spell and _have_ sex," Mitsuru said.

Nanako shrunk back more, wishing that she had some kind of Persona ability to vanish from sight.

Mitsuru shook her head slightly to move the hair out of her face. "Look, this isn't about you choosing to date Ken. This is about you thinking you had to hide that from me like I was your mother."

Yukari's eyes welled up. "Well, that's our Mitsuru, she knows her enemy's weakness, especially when that enemy happens to be her supposed best friend."

"You know what I meant. And you're right, we're best friends, why would you hide something that makes you happy from me like this?" Mitsuru said.

"I was hoping we'd get more detail about this sex: how many times, what configurations of positions, was there substantial oral..." Rise said.

Mitsuru and Yukari ignored her. "Because I'm not sure that it really can be anything. What if I'm using Ken or what if I'm just bad for him. I wasn't sure what you would think of me because I'm not sure what I think of myself."

"I would have told you that people change. Ken isn't a child anymore, you're not a scared bratty teen. You might have both started out in those positions, but you're forgetting how much everything has changed for all of us," Mitsuru said.

"And yet you can't let go of his death. That's why you're chasing this-this underground Tartarus, isn't it?"

"I'm more afraid that the result of not stopping this thing might end up the same, total extinction of the human race. We were brash to try and save the world from a near God level existence the last time, but I didn't watch my friend save it before just to have it perish a few short years later."

Yukari sighed and gazed down into her lap at the rumpled mess of sheets. "He'd want us to fight, huh?" Yukari said.

"Yeah, that was really all he wanted in the end, for us not to give up." Mitsuru said.

"Then you have to at least go down there and see what's happening, but wait until I'm better and we can really get into it together," Yukari said.

"We will."

"Nanako," Yukari said. "It's your job to keep these two in line until Chie and I are back, okay?"

Nanako nodded. "I'm doing my best."

"I'm going to take Nanako down to the café for some breakfast, do either of you need anything?" asked Mitsuru.

"I'm fine," they both said almost in unison. With Mitsuru and Nanako leaving the room, Rise took a seat next to the bed. She stared at Yukari for a long time with an intent look in her eyes.

"You have to tell me one thing at least, please?" Rise said looking distraught for the answer to this one question. "Did you wear the Pink Argus costume?" she asked.

Yukari dropped her head back. "Ugh, I'm not telling you that."

"You did. I can read it all over your face. Well, I hope you got it dry cleaned quick, if that stuff just sits in there your fabric will never be the same again."

* * *

The subway was the only thing underground that could have lead to the entrance to their new labyrinth. It was hard to believe anyone else who could enter the Mirror World wouldn't have noticed this. There was a bright red glow of shifting, pulsing light ebbing up the steps that lead down to the first level of subway.

Below the streets it was as if the city housed a living entity. The walls pumped and throbbed with vein like appendages running all along them. The veins all seemed to be flowing one direction and headed deeper into the heard of this maze.

Rise closed her eyes and fanned her hand out in front of her as she walked. "This is strange, the walls are feeding into something," she said.

"How deep does this place go?" asked Nanako.

Rise shook her head. "Back in Inaba the tallest one of those places was maybe fifteen floors?" This feels like five times that, at least. Like, trying to sense my way to the bottom feels...overwhelming."

"Don't over do it," Mitsuru said.

A hunchbacked Shadow flares up with excitement as it spots them from around the corner and it comes charging toward them with bounding steps. Mitsuru brings her saber up in one hand and finds her mark before the thing can actually reach them. Her blade slips under the mask causing the creature to freeze in place and burst into black smoke.

"It would seem we've attracted the attention of some of the residents." Nanako said.

"Oh, what's this? There's someone-" a green cloud of sparking smoke overtakes Rise and her voice cuts out. Her lips are moving but she can't make a sound. The ghostly image of her Persona vanished from behind her too.

Mitsuru spun and brought her Evoker up to her temple. "Rise!" she pulls the trigger an instant later. "Persona! Artemisia go!"

The huge figure of Artemisia bursts into being twirling out with sword in hand to deflect a blow from the huge winged figure that just seems like streaks of bright red and black as it dashes in for the attack.

"Persephone!" Nanako sends her Persona in from the side to push the attacker away from Mitsuru and she knocks the mysterious figure away. It almost costs her dearly. A caped figure rushes in with knives brandished and at the ready. She catches her would be attacker's shadowy movements out of the corner of her eye and swings the spear around hard to connect with his arm. At the same time she steps to the side so as not to be in the same spot he's aiming for.

He's fast and he almost seems to teleport and then his knife is at her throat. For what seems a long time the figure is still and he finally speaks. "I've got you."

"Do you?" Nanako asked. You see, in the split second after the attacker vanished from her sight for the teleport, Nanako closed up her stance and brought the spear up against her chest and passed it down the side of neck. With a little nudge she pushes his dagger back, putting her spear's shaft in place of her neck.

And then she presses the gun into his chest. "My Dad was an amazing Detective. He taught me to use a gun. He also taught me that you should really keep the little strap at the top of your holster closed so that no one does what I'm doing right now. Call off your Persona."

His Persona vanished and for the first time Nanako got a good look at him. A white mask covered his upper face and he was dressed in a stylish long coated tuxedo. "You're the leader of the Phantom Thieves."


	3. Chapter 3

The masked leader of the Phantom Thieves dropped the knife from Nanako's neck and stepped back to the side, closing up his stance. Looking at him this close, it was easy to tell that he was her age. Behind that mask and those devil-may-care-curls was a high school boy. He cracked a slight smile.

"Other Persona Users?" He asked.

Without the threat of having her neck slit, Nanako was suddenly aware of how close they were and how cute his smile was. "Yeah. Obviously." She spun his gun around and pressed the weapon into his hands.

Rise walked over and took Nanako around the shoulders, hugging her from the side. She was sputtering and coughing as her voice came back. "I was trying to say, 'I think there's another Persona user down here. You found him," she said.

The Phantom Thief turned to face Rise, his eyes tracing over her the way that someone scans a familiar photo. Maybe it was a little too familiar.

"You're Risette?" Said the Phantom Thief, suddenly sounding so much less cool than he previously had.

"Yeah. And I'm in a serious relationship, so…look but don't touch," Rise said.

Nanako sighed. "Why'd you attack us?"

"Not all people with Personas are good. I wasn't sure what you down here was," he said.

Mitsuru put her sword away. "So you've known this was here all along?"

"I've known about it for the better part of a year now. We call it Mementos and it's just a fact of life now."

Rise shook her head. "There was a place like this before and it almost brought about the end of the world. That's why we took interest. Who knows what this thing might actually be hiding?"

"I've been to the bottom and it's nothing." The Phantom Thief folded his arms and looked over all of them. "Who are you people—I mean other than you," he said pointing at Rise.

"I'm Nanako and this is Mitsuru, she's our leader. We investigate the creatures that run around in places like this. We call them shadows."

"That's what they're called," the Thief said.

Mitsuru had a stern look on her face. "Why don't you just give him our forward address and blood types while you're at it."

"They call me Joker," he said. "We've adopted code names for our little extracurricular activities. It just seemed safer."

Rise grimaced. "Code names is a damn good idea. Mitsuru, why don't we have code names?"

Mitsuru glanced over at her. "I could give you one first? How about—annoying bitch?"

"Ouch." Rise said.

Joker snickered at them. "The rest of the group isn't down here tonight, just doing some solo poking around and looking into things."

"That seems like a bad idea. No navigator and all," Rise said.

Joker shrugged his shoulders with a unconcerned look on his face. "I do have one question for you," he started. "You, Red, why'd you shoot yourself with that weird gun?"

"It's an Evoker. It allows me to force my Persona to the surface." Mitsuru said.

He nodded. "That's dark, but I just yell Persona and think it and it comes up. Look, this is a weird place to have a casual conversation and if we wait around in one spot too long…you don't want to know who shows up. How about some dinner? I know the girl who owns _Big Bang Burger._ My treat?"

* * *

The heart of the Shibuya District had as much going on as Inaba and Okina on the busiest day. The overcast skies made the glow of the huge signs on the sides of the buildings and the signs of the smaller shops in the narrow walkways create this eerie halo effect that seemed to make everything around it take on the magical glow. The streets were filled to the brim with people, though _Big Bang Burger_ wasn't known for being the premier eating place, so the inside was pretty empty.

There was a long bench across one window that ran across one side of two tables, the other side of the tables had regular side benches with a split in the middle so that people could step through. When it was all said and done there was barely enough room for the people that showed up.

Joker sent a text on his cellphone to gather those that he could. The first pair to show up had been a rather punctual looking woman with long gray hair and a slightly shorter woman with shoulder length dark hair. Both of their eyes were an almost red-brown, their names were Makoto and Sae Niijima. They greeted Joker and then went down the line introducing themselves to the others in attendance.

Another man arrived with wild spikes of blond hair. He said his name was Ryuji. He waited against the wall near Sae with his hands pushed deep into his pockets, his back slouched and a look of disinterest on his face.

The last two people to arrive showed up together too, and much to the surprise of Mitsuru, Joker hadn't been lying about the crack where he said that he knew the head of Okumura Foods. Haru Okumura and Anne strolled through the door laughing and talking. A few of the employees ran to greet Haru, but she didn't seem to really act like it was because of her status.

"Miss Okumura, it's good to see you again. Would you like anything special?" One of the men asked.

Haru smiled and then said in a soft voice. "Oh no, Shinji," it was clear that she glanced down at the name plate on his shirt, but she made the best effort to pretend that she'd remembered it or divined it through some kind of higher power. "I'm just meeting my friends to have dinner," Haru took Anne by the arm smiling cheerfully.

The staffers parted away from her to let her pass with Anne and as they reached the group, Rise stood up from her spot between the two tables. "Anne-chan?" she moved in closer to Anne hugging her around the neck. "I thought that was you. Guys, Anne did some work for a modeling agency that was owned by a company that managed me for a while. We met once when we were at an event and we used to hangout. This girl took me all over L.A. my first time," Rise said. "What was that phrase you taught me," she started. "My English is terrible," she said in English that was shaky at best, adding extra syllables to every word.

"Is that what this is?" Asked Anne, hugging her back. "Ren wanted us to meet you?"

Joker must have been Ren, he pressed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. "This is business to do with Mementos," he said. "Mitsuru, Nanako, and Rise—this is Anne, Haru, Makoto, Sae and Ryuji."

"They're all like you? Persona users?" Sae asked.

Ren nodded. "I bumped into them near Mementos," he said. "There would usually be more of us, but different life obligations come up. We've got a woman who monitors Mementos and kept and eye on any changes down there, but she's busy now and another one of us is off doing a gallery show."

"There's two more of us," Nanako said. "One is injured and the other one went had some personal-ish issues." She looked to Mitsuru for approval, but her expression showed nothing.

A few companions between the two groups made, mostly in a joking matter, were thrown around. After a moment things dissolved into several smaller conversations between the groups. They ordered food and apparently Haru and Mitsuru knew of each other in passing. Their fathers had been billionaire businessmen and there weren't many of them around. Things were progressing well enough with all of them.

When the food came Anne was the first to tear into her burgers. She order three and a small fry. Before most of the table had eaten half of anything she was done with one and a half burgers. Mitsuru stared wide eyed. "You're a model?" She asked.

"Mmhmm," Anne said through a mouth full of food.

"Where does the food go?" Mitsuru asked. Anne just shrugged in reply.

Rise laughed. "We've got another Chie on our hands."

Ryuji rubbed the back of his head with a hand absently. "Hey, Rise. I've got a cousin who's a big fan, do you think you could sign something for her?" He said with a sly smile.

"Cousin, huh? Should I leave the name off of it?" Rise asked leaning toward him and rocking her head side-to-side mockingly.

"Man, you caught me," he said before giving a nervous chuckle. "But if you could just sign it to Skull, that'd be cool."

Anne rolled eyes. "You can't let her put your codename on an autograph, idiot," she said. "Also, don't get any ideas, she's got a pretty serious boyfriend from what I remember."

Rise laughed to herself as she sipped on a glass bottle water that she had brought into the restaurant with her. "The serious boyfriend is actually like us too," she said. "He's Nana-chan's cousin."

"That's not my name." Nanako said.

Everyone stopped and stared at Nanako. Rise was taken aback. "Is something the matter?" She asked.

"I'm not six anymore, it's just—it," Nanako froze, her hands seizing up over her tray of food. Her body began to shake and she tilted over to the side.

"Nanako! Nanako!" Mitsuru yelled.

"Get, help! Get someone!" Haru yelled.

Ren was out of the chair running toward the doors of the place, Nanako could see the darkness eating away at the edge of her sight. And everything went black.

* * *

Her sight was marred by a bright light that spilled over her body. Movement was impossible at first. She could feel her legs and arms struggling against their own weight. Maybe it was good news that she could at least feel this parts of her body still. She was in one piece. She was still something.

There were figures moving about in front of her, the light blotted them out at first, but the light became less overpowering and the shapes and the sounds and smells of the room came into focus. The creaking of gears spinning against each other could be heard echoing through the room. A smell like dust and wood was faint in the air.

And everything was draped in deep, purple tapestries. There was a table and what looked to be a tall standing mirror, and a purple rug. One of the figures moved closer to where Nanako laid. The woman got closer and Nanako could see her pale, sandy skin and white blonde hair. And the yellow eyes. She remembered a woman with yellow eyes being around her cousin.

"She's waking up. I thought you might have killed her." The woman said.

There were two other figures at her back, one male and one female, both of them tall and slender. They moved into the light, hints of purple dancing on the edges of their face as something in the distance spun through a light up high somewhere. "I wouldn't have tried it if I thought it would kill her, Elizabeth."

"It was a risky move," came the male's voice.

The woman who was not Elizabeth had bushy white blonde hair and the same yellow eyes and sand-white skin. There was a more elegant manner about her than the other woman and she looked strangely familiar to Nanako. She squatted down careful next to Nanako, sitting a thick leather-bound book in her lap. "What is it he usually says? Oh yes, Welcome to the Velvet room. My name is Margaret and I am or was, rather, a servant of Philemon."

Nanako managed to speak. "What's a Velvet Room?"

"It's a place that resides between dream and the waking world. Usually it's much more organized than what you see before you, but this is a quick and dirty version of the real thing. My siblings, Theodore and Elizabeth, and myself conjured this version of the room. Our powers are limited and we're not as skilled as our progenitor at weaving a suitable visage together," Margaret said.

"Am I okay. I passed out and woke up here," said Nanako.

"Like she said, quick and dirty," Elizabeth said. "We waited until you became agitated and used that to conk you out so that we could speak to you here. The you out there is fine, though I think your friends are probably a little worried. We'll try not to keep you too long."

Theodore stepped in and took Nanako by the hands to help her sit up. "Let's help you up, tell me if you get too dizzy." He was kind of handsome, chiseled chin and jaw line, with his hair swept neatly back over his ears and tucked under a small blue hat that seemed to be part of a uniform.

"Thank you," Nanako said. "But why do you need my help though?"

"Over the centuries the Velvet Room has served those as a crossroads in their life and aided in them taking back control of a dire situation. In times when the hands of fate were otherwise stacked against those who were at an impasse, we've been here with our masters to see that they get at least a fair chance at redemption and happiness. Your cousin, Yu, was my charge during his time Inaba. I spoke to him the night of your miraculous recovery. And the person that Mitsuru and Yukari hold dear who has passed on was a charge of my sister and in some timelines my brother—the Velvet Room isn't beholden to one reality. We at times witness two sets of events during the same time period," Margaret explained.

"That's all…confusing."

"It was necessary. Your blood connection to Yu, no matter how small, made you the easiest to contact. You and your friends are in grave danger and I fear that we might not have much time left. Our sister, Lavenza, and our master, Igor, has gone missing and we fear that the thing in the depths of Mementos has imprisoned them or worse."

"You need us to get down to the bottom of that place and find them?" Asked Nanako.

Elizabeth nodded. "But we should warn you that if someone got them chances are they're not going without a fight. Our other sister is no pushover."

Theodore slid the book off of Maragret's lap. "The services of the Velvet Room are with you, since we do not formally have the sanctioned powers to do all that is usually required of us we can offer something unique," he said. "A partially completed list of Personas that you may borrow. Your potential is similar to your cousins, while you lack the empty space waiting to be filled, you can carry within you Personas other than your own."

"Yu was adept at actually capturing new Personas. My brother is saying you'll have to make due with what we have in the book," said Elizabeth.

"You should be going now, remember to keep the knowledge of this place from all but those you hold most dear," said Theodore.

Margaret handed her a small skeleton key with a purple ribbon tied to it. "This will bring you back to us. Look for a purple door in your world. When we next meet, you'll be seeking us out."

Then Margaret got right down in her face, close. Very close to the point that she could feel Margaret's breath and smell her. She definitely had a smell, but it wasn't the kind of thing humans smell like. It was fragrant, sort of unnatural smell, like artificial sweetner. And just like that Margaret shoved her by the face and Nanako was tumbling end over end through darkness.

When she opened her eyes she was she was draped across Ryuji's lap with Rise and Haru looking down at her. She stirred against Ryuji's leg. "I'm sorry—I must have just fainted." Nanako said.

"We need to get you checked. You had an issue before after confronting Shadows and you were clinically dead for several minutes," Rise said.

"Really, I'm okay. I just think we need to call it a day." Nanako said.

Mitsuru nodded, pushing her hair away from her eyes. "We have done a lot in a short amount of time and Nanako used her Persona more than she's used to in a short time. The less we rest the more time we'll have to wait between trips into Mementos."

"You're going back?" Asked Ren.

Nanako nodded. "We have to. Even if there's a chance that something down there means to hurt the city or the people in it, we have to look into it."

Ren shrugged. "You'll be walking down dozens of floors just to see nothing," he said.

"Then we'll just have to see nothing," Nanako said.

Anne folded her arms. "We have wanted to check that place out for a while, I'm not so sure why he's sure there's nothing down there."

Rise shrugged. "At the very least it'll give Nanako a chance to train."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** There are references to the crime of rape in this chapter, nothing worse than you'd see or hear on a tamer episode of Law and Order SVU. There's also references to depression. (see other note at the end)

* * *

By the evening a driving rain set in over the city. The world was slick and wet and seemingly washed clean by the waters. And as it got later the intensity of the rain grew. The sky opened up and let out a fury of thunder and lightning.

It had been chiller than the previous day with sweeping winds roaring through the streets to Tokyo. A body exposed to these conditions for any amount of time would grow cool and it would be hard for the causal observer to identify a time of death.

Ichiko Ohya had been found in a narrow path between a steak on a stick place and a row of dumpsters. Her shirt was ripped open, with the buttons scattered about the alley way and she was face down with her skirt frayed out, her underwear were balled up around her ankles. The time of death would be hard to discern to the casual observer, but at least they would be able to write this case off as an aggressive rape and start looking for things in that vein…

It was lucky that Naoto Shirogane was not your causal observer.

She hadn't been dressed for work, today was a day she was meant to be out with a friend. It was a small matter to be late to or miss, but they had been meaning to go out to a bar and this friend had insisted she wear a dress. So here was Naoto squatting next to a dead body in a trash strewn alley in a blue dress and very hard to walk in heels.

No matter the clothes that she wore or the way that the men on the job here would regard her for daring to be a woman or have a figure, it didn't really effect her. It was a non-issue when it came to her job performance and what she was expected to do as a consulting detective.

Naoto knew Ichiko Ohya to have been a reporter that had something of a reputation. She had broken a lot of the Phantom Thieves exclusives during the original rash of mental shutdowns and she lived a mess of a life. Bars every night, causal sex—it was what had caused the detectives with the prefectural police to claim that her behavior had led to _this._

But there was something off.

The water beaded up on Ohya's bare legs and her clothes were soaked through. Her body would be cold to the touch but still looked fresh. There was no sign of struggle here in the area and no mess of any kind that didn't belong.

And just like that it was obvious what had happened.

Naoto stood to her full height sweeping hair away from her forehead. She had been growing it out for some time now and it was down into the middle of her back, but she hadn't anticipated it getting this wet. She was still getting used to having to consider such things and needing an umbrella because your hair would get wet and stick to your bare back because of your dress's bust-line was one of those things.

"Detective," Naoto said. "Did the first person on scene report seeing any blood or a weapon?"

The Detective shook his head.

"That's because there isn't one. Did you happen to get a look at the victim's face?" Naoto asked.

The older detective stood for a moment as if sizing her up and then answered. "I saw it. Seen her around before."

"So then you saw that her eyes are dripping blood faintly. In fact that's the only blood that I see anywhere on her person."

The Detective took a step back, seemingly alarmed. "What are you hinting at?"

"It would appear that this Miss Ohya is exhibiting some of the same symptoms that were present in the mental shutdown cases, though I can't say for sure without there being some lab work done."

"You're saying that someone used this 'mental shutdown' and then raped her and dumped the body here? That seems like a stretch." Said the Detective.

"For Miss Ohya to have been raped our perpetrator would have had to pull her underwear down to the ankles, step over them, and fit between her legs while managing not to shake her underwear free. There are no exit wounds, no signs of struggle. No, I think that the criminal followed her here after administering whatever causes the mental shutdown and staged this crime scene. Her shit has been cut open, but it looks to have happened post mortem as does the other staging of the body."

He waved a dismissive hand at her. "I think I'll wait for whatever forensics brings me back, Naoto-chan."

Naoto stripped her gloves off and tossed them into a nearby dumpster. "If this is how we must do this," she sighed. "I will be at the bar tonight with a friend, I trust that the police have my number still?"

The Detective never answered and Naoto walked back through the crowd to her waiting friend.

* * *

Kurenai stood clutching her purse against her lap and trying to carefully push up onto her toes to get a glimpse at where Naoto might have gone. The police had blocked off the entire sidewalk leading into the alley and a crowd of people had gathered. There were mutterings of a dead body and this had been enough to draw Naoto away from their little ladies night outing.

It was lucky that she had decided on this pink dress with it's white floral pattern at the bottom, because the white would have invited trouble with all of this rain. Her auburn-ish hair was up in a messy little bun that was intentionally meant to look devil-may-care.

But she did care. This was a fact finding mission and the fact she needed to seek out was is Naoto interested in her.

She had no problem with relationships with women, though she had dated mostly men in her life there had been playful kissing with a girl during her time in the group home where she lived. It was just that she needed to be sure. And of course the one night she would pick to give this a whirl someone goes and gets murdered right on their route to the bar.

Naoto emerged from the crowd, her dark hair sticking to her bare shoulders in splayed out strands. Kurenai was shocked that Naoto had picked this outfit herself, it showed off more than was traditionally seen as acceptable and definitely more than Naoto ever had around her before. That was a strike in favor of Naoto desiring more than a friendship.

Cutting hard to the side of the crowd, Naoto made her way down the sidewalk and out into the open.

And away from Kurenai.

Kurenai raced down the thin part of the sidewalk still available to catch up to her and lightly tapped her shoulder when she caught up. "Hey, everything alright?"

Naoto turned a stern look on her face. "It's just more of the same things."

Kurenai pursed her lips to the side and furrowed her brow. "I'm guessing you ran into another man who is sure you don't know what you're talking about?"

Naoto sighed. "Yeah."

Kurenai threw her arms up and pulled Naoto in for a hug. Naoto only came up to her shoulders and when they were close together she let her chin rest on top of Naoto's wet hair. "When they find out you're right they'll be sorry," Kurenai said.

"Let's just hope someone working in the forensics lab knows what they're doing." Naoto said.

Kurenai knew that Naoto couldn't see her smirk from inside the hug, but she did it anyway. "I work in the forensics lab," she said. She stepped back, holding Naoto by the shoulders. "Come have a drink with me, you're too cute to be standing out here in the rain feeling sorry for the faults of lesser people."

Naoto made a slightly disapproving face and Kurenai corrected herself. "I mean cute in the sexiest way possible."

* * *

The trip to the bar had turned into four separate bars over the course of several hours. Men bought them drinks, they bought each other drinks, at one point they'd sat at a table with a group of Americans, possible in the armed forces from the look of them, they didn't say.

Kurenai was half white, though it was Canadian and her English was simplistic at best. She had only known Japan as home and most of her mother's native language was only spoken around her when she was six or younger. They'd elected to walk the several blocks back to Naoto's apartment, she didn't know why.

Naoto really didn't hold alcohol well and she was a mess. She was practically using Kurenai as a crutch on the way back here. The room was spartan, she could tell even in the dark. There was a picture of a friend group, probably in high school, from the looks of it and a few awards hung up in plain frames and that was it. Naoto was typically about the utility of a thing. That's how Kurenai expected her to be anyway.

Another thing Naoto was: straight to the point. Kurenai left Naoto to go into the kitchen. "I'm going to find you a nice glass of water so we can get you in bed," she said.

She found the glasses in an upper cabinet near the sink and pulled one out, rinsing quickly before filling it up. When she walked back into the other room she nearly dropped the glass.

Naoto was standing in near silhouette with the Tokyo skyline lighting the edges of her skin with an eerie glow with her dress crumpled down around her waist and sliding off. She spoke slowly to hide her inebriation. "This is what you wanted, right?" she asked. "I might not be the best on picking up cues, but I am relatively sure I read this right."

Kurenai crossed the room without a word and pressed the glass to Naoto's lips. "Drink," she said and Naoto did. When it seemed that she had her fill, Kurenai moved to sit the glass aside. The first kiss was an exploratory venture; Kurenai had forgotten the softness of another woman's lips, but there was something firm and commanding about Naoto's kiss.

They had sex on a terrible futon that would have been the worst thing to sit on, but was just so damn convenient. They moved to the bedroom for to lay in the dark as the sobered up, they bodies exposed and above the covers like they had nothing to hide.

Despite that they spoke in whispers, like kids telling stories under a makeshift blanket fort at a sleepover.

"I hadn't been sure about you," Kurenai said finally.

"About what?"

"If you were interested in women."

Naoto's lips brushed her shoulder. "I'm interested in people. I see no point in arbitrary limitations."

"Hmm, you're still a strange one, you know. I guess it's not that bad. Last time I had sex with someone the first time they asked me if I believed in destiny," Kurenai said with a small scoffing laugh.

"What did you tell them?"

"It was a man, younger and totally into this idea that I owed him more of my time because we had sex. I don't think I was attracted to him. Not the way I'm attracted to something about you."

Naoto moved to rest her cheek on Kurenai's shoulder. "My experiences with men have typically ended in confusion. When I was younger I would dress as a man. Tape my breasts. Try and add depth to my voice. I figured that authority figures in the police force would be more likely to listen to a boy and that's what the idea of a detective is supposed to be. A boy." Naoto said.

"What made you stop?" Asked Kurenai.

"There were a series of tragedies and victories and a group of friends who accepted me as me."

"School is a mess. You lucked out."

"Was there some similar realization you wish had happened for you?" Asked Naoto.

"I had a costume of sorts. I smiled everyday and was the bubbly girl that used to be everyone's friend. I dated boys that flirted with real popularity and had a stupid nickname," Kurenai paused here. " _Kawaii Kurenai_." She spoke the words with a kind of vitriol that one reserved for true hatred.

"What happened?"

"I was just around people all the time. Had supposed friends and bonds with each other, but I felt alone. I did things because they were expected of me or sometimes because the person asked. I just coasted through life feeling empty inside. I felt like if I died it wouldn't really matter. My parents were gone, my so called 'friends' wouldn't notice one less foot solider."

"You lost your parents at an early age? I'm sorry if this opens any old wounds," Naoto said.

Kurenai shook her head. "It doesn't. They died when I was six and I feel like I eventually learned. You pretend to be happy and normal for so long that you start to just be happy and normal," Kurenai said. "It's odd, I used to go back to the place they died, Moonlight bridge in Port Island, and put flowers near where our car was found, but I haven't even thought about that in years or talked about them. They were still rebuilding the bridge last time I was there—the place must be bad luck—there was some kind of gas line explosion in 2009, I think?"

Naoto nodded. "I've been out that way once and I'm glad you feel like opening up. I don't get to have meaningful discussion like this anymore."

Naoto's phone chimed, breaking the spell over the two of them. She crawled over Kurenai to grab at the iPhone on the bedside table. A series of texts from Nanako ran down the middle of the notification screen.

12:38 A.M. - _Where are you_

11:53 P.M. - _Someone we can trust_

11:52 P.M. - _We might need help on this one_

10:29 P.M. - _Met the Phantom Thieves. There's a shadow nest beneath the city. Please call._

These calls had happened during the drunkeness or the sex that followed. She never would have heard the phone chime or vibrate. Or bothered to pay attention to it in that state. "Would you mind if I made a business call out in the other room, you can stay here as long as you like and this isn't any sly attempt to escape you."

"I don't mind. Where would go? This is your place," Kurenai said.

"This is true." Naoto waited until she was just outside the door of the room to make the call. "Nanako? I need you to stay calm and explain to me exactly what's happening."

* * *

 **Notes:** Okay, so this might be the hardest one for people to get on board with yet, so thank you for hanging in there. But I feel like I owe some explanation for those who might not have played P3 Portable, or might not have caught what this was at the end. The Kurenai character is the female protagonist from P3. It'll make sense eventually.

Also, the P3 movie has the Moonlight bridge be destroyed, so that's what that is based on.


	5. Chapter 5

It didn't take her much prying to tell that something was wrong, the brains that she had gotten hints of tended to be a certain way. She had looked at the other members of S.I.S. just average people that she came across. They had a certain hum to them. A brain seemed to resonate at a certain frequency—she didn't know how else to put it and explaining this to her companions would be next to impossible.

The onset of her newer abilities had slowly risen from what she was. Navigating the Mirror World was a certain sense and now it just happened to apply people too.

But the hum she had felt on Anne and the others was wrong. There were blips in the static, holes that shouldn't have been there. She hit all of them in turn and just as a test she went through Nanako and Mitsuru.

Her suspicions had been correct, there was nothing of note with the members of SIS or Ren, but his companions, the rest of the Phantom Thieves were missing part of themselves.

They needed to warn him, but Nanako had begged them to leave and called Naoto on the way rooms. She wouldn't say what she had seen, but she was spooked—worse than Rise had seen her in a long while.

Nanako wouldn't speak until she led them through an alley. "Something happened when I passed out?" She said.

"Prophetic vision?" Asked Mitsuru in a dry tone.

"Maybe? I was inside of this factory or maybe a big clock. And there was this beautiful lady named…Margaret. She was in charge. And then there was a pair of twins—Theodore and Elizabeth. They said that I was almost like my cousin or that I could be a stand in for him…"

Mitsuru stopped. "Elizabeth," she said. "Was there a long nosed man named Igor?"

"He's missing. That's what they said. They said that they need us to go down into the depths of that Mementos place and we'd find answers there."

Rise made a sad pouty sound. "Are we doing this whole 'destined heroes' thing again? Because if so I'm going to need sensible shoes…"

"You're welcome to sit this out," Mitsuru said.

"And who's going to navigate your sad asses around and scan for ambushes? I'd be leaving you to get slaughtered," Rise said. "No thanks. But, while we're revealing weird things, I was scanning their brains without consent back in the Burger place, because I'm creepy like that, and there's something wrong with all of them—except Ren. It's like they're not…whole."

Mitsuru turned to face the two of them, her hand coming to rest on her hip. "From the way that things are looking I can't say I get what's going on, but I don't like any of it."

"There's not enough of us to really do anything. Without Chie or Yukari we're at three quarters strength," Nanako said. There was an echo to Nanako's voice, she could feel the sound of her own words bouncing through the narrow passage between the buildings.

And all at once they noticed it, it was unlike Rise, but she hadn't sensed the thing until they were in the middle of it. There were no more cars, the light from the street lamps was a furious red color that spilled out onto the sidewalks across the street from their narrow alley.

"How did we get back in the Mirror World," Mitsuru asked.

Rise muttered to herself. "What the fuck…" She spun to catch sight of someone walking up the alleyway from the other end. The person was little more than a darkened silhouette as he lumbered toward them. "He told me all I had to do was end your meddling." The figure had the voice of a human, but it was tinted with madness. As he moved toward them the shape of him became more clear: he wore a wide shouldered jacket and a mask that extended out like a bird's beak.

"Something is very wrong. I'm not sure what I'm sensing," Rise said.

"Before, I would have just killed your Shadows, but I can't do that because they're tethered inside of you." As he said this he stepped under a street lamp to reveal that he was covered in oily black from head to toe, like he was made of living darkness. "That's fine with me, all the more fun for me to split you open and rip them out of you! PERSONA!" His voice became a shrill crack as he threw his arms wide and a darkened figure rose from the ground behind him. "Come, Loki!"

Loki's attack was a maddened flurry of blows and it was luck that Rise was able to get her Persona to shield Nanako and Mitsuru, but barely. The force of the blow threw Rise to the ground on her side.

Nanako and Mitsuru had opted to return to their rooms before meeting the Phantom Thieves. Carrying swords and spears might arouse the wrong kind of attention and they hadn't planned to do anything in this world. Now they were without any real means of attack other than Personas.

Mitsuru always had her Evoker nearby and she called her Persona, Artemisia, forth to rush Loki's master. The shadowy figure threw his arm up, his cape flaring up at his sides, and directed Loki to take an intercept path. There was no real winner, the two Persona's collided and vanished in a blue haze. Mitsuru grunted back as the strain from losing another bout jostled her. She placed the Evoker to her temple and fired. "Persona!"

Loki's wielder was right behind her, but this time he called out a different name. "Robin Hood! Take everything from them," he cackled, throwing his head back.

"Another Persona, just like him," Mitsuru said as she watched Artemisia wrap her whip around Robin Hood and try to pull him to the ground.

Nanako sent Persephone to assist in the fight, slamming into Robin Hood from the side to hold him in place. The three Persona were locked together in combat just feet from their other selves.

Rise rubbed her head. "It's okay, I'm okay." He let out a small whimper as she pushed to her feet. "First serial killers, then giant labyrinths, and now we're fighting a Shonen Anime villain?"

Rise placed her hands together in a small steeple shape and called to her Persona, Kouzeon. A woman in white billowing skirts appeared behind her and placed its hands around the top of her head. A wave of greenish energy washed over the area, filling Nanako and Mitsuru. Their spirits would be cleansed and their wounds healed, but she felt weakened, like the very thing that gave her Kouzeon power was ebbing out of her.

"Something is wrong," she said dropping to her knees. "Kouzeon, I can't…"

Persephone and Artemisia worked in tandem, though Mitsuru hadn't taught Nanako this yet, she seemed to be smart enough to grasp the idea of it. This person might have had the same ability Yuki Makoto and Yu that gave him infinite versatility, but Mitsuru knew the secret behind them. "He can only have one Persona out at a time, we need to split up."

Nanako nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

They moved apart to circle around their target. Nanako dashed back toward Rise to check on her and also to grab a discarded mop that lay next to some trash. As she lifted it a ball of energy swirled past. Loki's user was forced to drop one Persona, switch to another, and then attack Mitsuru on the other side of him. She held her own with Artemisia, but couldn't push in closer.

Mitsuru would be pinned against the wall if this kept up. Clearly this shadowy figure had judged her to be the bigger threat and he was trying to keep her off balance. Nanako had to do something. She steered Persephone back toward herself and Rise and muttered a single word, "Hama."

Robin Hood appeared right in front of her, fighting Persephone. Nanako dodged around the two of them and broke into a run headed right for the figure. Her running turned into bounding strides toward the attacker and just before she reached him, the cast that Persephone had started charged enough to be visible.

Small tags encircled the dark Persona user followed by an eerie glow. The move was slow, it took time to charge, but it was time that this attacker couldn't focus on either her or Mitsuru. The glow intensified and before he was engulfed in light, he dodged to the side of it.

And Nanako was right there. She slammed the mop into his face, smashing the mask and revealing the pale skin beneath. His Personas vanished now and he dropped to one knee between Mitsuru and her. "You—you BITCHES. How dare you. I'm going to enjoy bringing you back to him in pieces."

Rise was stumbling toward them. "He's syphoned off my energy; I'm practically useless." When she noticed their attacker crouched over pieces of a broken mask their eyes met. "Huh, he's that detective. The one that vanished."

"You can't read his mind though?" Asked Mitsuru.

Rise shook her head. "Something is blocking me."

"Convenient."

"Akechi something, that's his name," Nanako said. She remembered how often he was on TV a little over a year ago. Before they could properly react Akechi rushed Nanako. He pulled what felt like a laser sword and sliced right through the mop stick and brought the glowing hot blade down against her shoulder. Nanako reeled back, her whole body twitching with fear as Akechi seared the surface of her skin with his weapon.

Mitsuru and Rise went to step in. "Stay where you are or I slice off her dainty, little arm.. Akechi said.

The other two women froze, but Nanako couldn't stay still for much longer. The blade hummed and crackled with this sort of electricity and each time it popped she could feel a shock dance up her arm. It was a struggle to stay present, let alone standing. Akechi's face was close to hers and through the burn of the pain she could just tell he reveled in every moment of it. His eyes were wide and wild with anticipation as if he dared them to try anything and test them.

After what felt to her like minutes, he grasped Nanako's chin in his oily, gloved hand and pulled her in close to him, moving his sword to the side. He turned her head slightly and ran his tongue up the side of her cheek. She jumped at the moment it touched her, not knowing what it was. When she realized she jerked back and he let her fall to the ground. He smacked his lips as if savoring the taste. "You'll remember that, they say you never forget the first time you were marked for death."

In a blur of white and red and black Akechi vanished and they were back in the normal world. Blood ran down Nanako's chest and shoulder. The skin around the wound was a mess of red and purple. She wanted to clamp a hand down over to feel like she was doing something, but it was bigger than her hand and, besides, she knew that would be extremely painful.

Rise pulled off the small scarf like wrap she had been wearing and shook it a few times before wrapping it around Nanako's arm. She pulled the younger girl toward her, hugging her close. "We're going to get help. We're getting help for you, okay?"

Tears streamed down Nanako's face, but she was fighting anything louder than small sniffles made to stifle the pain. Mitsuru stood off to the side with her arms folded over her chest, but she tried her best not to look directly at Nanako. "Will she be okay?"

Rise shrugged. "I'm not adept at healing and besides, I've been tapped out. Must be something that asshole did to me."

"Then we need to find someone who can help us." Mitsuru said. "Anyone."


	6. Chapter 6

"It would seem she's back already," came a slightly nasally voice. Everything was warm here and the pain of her arm being sliced into felt like a shallow heat more than anything else.

Nanako opened her eyes to see Elizabeth kneeling next to her and staring into her face. "She's not dead," Elizabeth added as if she had discovered the state of being not dead.

"He threatened to cut my arm off," Nanako said in a weak tone.

Margaret was flipping through a huge binder that was so full it couldn't have been able to close very well. She lifted some of the loose pages out to flip them over and read the back. "That was most unexpected, but luckily it seems that he can't get to you outside of the Metaverse…" she said.

"What are you looking for?" Asked Nanako.

"A contract," Margaret said. "The Persona user that attacked you possesses the Wild Card. It's a mental ability to both entrap new Personas and store multiple ones at once. That man…"

"Goro Akechi," Nanako said.

"Goro Akechi…he must have been a visitor of the Velvet Room at some point and he also must be dead," Margaret said.

"How can he be dead?"

Theodore was standing at one side of the room with his hands tucked behind his back. "When one dies inside of the Metaverse or what you call the Mirror World, their body and Shadow can become trapped. Goro Akechi should have been diluted and dissolved into the greater soup that is the public consciousness…"

Elizabeth took over Theodore's explanation. "…instead he was stitched back together through some arcane means. We suspect the being who controls Mementos extracted him to act like a servant and guardian. Though, something that could do that must be immensely powerful."

Nanako nodded. Things in the Mirror World worked differently; it would make sense that dying there would carry some different outcomes too. "The being you keep talking about, do you know who it is?"

"We have our suspicions," Margaret said.

"Well, it'd be nice if you could tell me some of them…" Nanako said.

Elizabeth smiled. "They're nobody that you know."

"Then why am I here?" Asked Nanako.

Margaret shrugged. "We had to establish a connection, you'll probably end up here whenever you're unconscious because, frankly, we're not very good at this."

"So…when I fall asleep I'll just sit in here all night with you three?" Asked Nanako.

"We're working to fix the issue," Edward said.

"I'm not sleep, you must have knocked me out again."

"You passed out because of the pain. Being here is keeping the pain in your arm from really affecting you. You'd be better here until your companions find someone who can help you.

* * *

Ann Takamaki was wearing a red leather catsuit complete with a mask and tail. The Mirror World had this effect on them, she had been over here so many times that just by entering the shadows considered her to be a threat. She wouldn't have come here without the other Phantom Thieves, but this was a desperate set of circumstances.

Nanako's body lay across her lap, not moving besides taking slow shallow breaths. She held her hand over the shoulder wound. "I can fix this," Ann said. "I think," she said her eyes turning down.

Mitsuru stood over her, examining her every move as she worked. "Good, the only one of our group who has the ability to heal is in the hospital."

Ann was trying to concentrate and it showed in every word she spoke. Her sentences were short and deliberate. "Yeah. We got lucky. None of us have been seriously hurt."

Maybe they hadn't but there was something left to worry about concerning these people who were little more than strangers. Rise had detected some kind of abnormality within them, like part of them was missing. It wasn't the kind of thing that Mitsuru was exactly sure she could bring up with Ann, especially considering that she was one of the people they were talking about. What if she became violent or if it triggered some reaction.

The power Rise had was trustworthy, but not well understood. Out of every other Persona wielder that Mitsuru had ever come across, Rise was the only one who's power extended beyond the Mirror World or the Dark Hour or whatever it was called. She could sense things and areas around them with varying degrees of success.

Even with all of the tests they could run and the near unlimited resources in funding things, they couldn't figure out why.

"It's a good thing she's passed out, I think that might be making it easier for her," Ann said stroking Nanako's forehead and rubbing her bangs back out of the way. "I'm almost there."

"Why is it taking so long?" Asked Rise.

"I'm doing it in short bursts, it seems to just take better," Ann explained. "If I do it all at once it might get the job done, but it might hurt more for a while after," she added,

Rise made a sound like a inquisitive, but unsure version of 'hmm', but didn't bother to actually voice any other concerns.

"You never told me who did this." Ann said.

"Someone who was thought dead or at least missing. A famous detective named Goro Akechi." Mitsuru said.

Ann froze, "That's—that has to be a mistake. Akechi, he died over a year ago. He was killed by—oh what did they call it—a cognitive version of himself."

"You know more about this than I would expect," Mitsuru said. "Still, we're thankful for your help here."

Rise stands against the wall with her arms folded. "I do have a question for you. What is at the bottom of Mementos?"

"Nothing." Ann stared blankly ahead. "We went down there and it was nothing. It just stops and…yeah."

"That's not suspicious," Rise said. She glances toward Mitsuru, "It's easier to read here, but I think I've figured it out."

Ann looked to Rise and then Mitsuru. "Figured what out?"

"If you could, could you try to picture the bottom of Mementos. Just picture it in your head," Rise said.

Nanako stirred slightly and muttered. "Big brother…" her words trailed off.

Ann sighed. "I'm done, so I guess I'll play whatever game this is." Anne closed her eyes and thought about the depths beneath the city. The pulsing, center of Mementos. And what was there. What was there? Something existed beneath the city and Ann was sure that she knew it was nothing. She said it again. "There's nothing there. I mean you just come to a room and that's it."

Mitsuru grabbed Rise by the shoulder. "What are you playing at?"

"I figured this out. We thought that someone had changed them in some particular way, but it's something stranger. Their memory is just altered three separate times."

Ann piped up. "We made three trips into Mementos."

"Why?" Rise asked. "Why would you travel to the bottom of a place to stare at what you're telling me is just a room?"

A blank expression came over Ann's face. "Umm," she bit at her lip and worked over the idea of it in her head. Each time they had made the push to the bottom of that place they had done it with this renewed gusto, but she couldn't remember why. What were they looking for? "What does all this mean?" Ann asked.

"You're all altered the same way. You and the other Phantom Thieves. The first one is the most extensive. It's…the biggest gap with lots of little gaps in between. The second and third ones are smaller, but you all have the same thing." Rise explained.

"Why can you see all of this?" Asked Ann.

Rise shrugged. "My Persona is weird. Some of the powers work in the real world and I'm like a blood hound over here."

Mitsuru shook her head. "Whatever is down there could have erased their memories. It could be like some kind of ultimatum. When we were about to face Nyx, his avatar gave us a choice. We could live in fear until The Fall came or he could wipe our memories so we could make the most of the next few months, but that before the spring our world would come to an end."

Ann shook her head. "That's unreal. We've just been stopping corruption. After that what did you do?"

"We chose to remember and to fight. We got to the top of Tartarus, it's basically an above ground version of Mementos, and on the top floor we faced Nyx. We fought him to a stand still, almost mortally wounded him, but in the end it wasn't enough. A friend of mine did something and it was just over. And then a few months later he just sort of…expired. He kept going because of us, because of his promise he made to be there with us, but he made a deal. His life for the world," Mitsuru said.

Rise rarely saw her go into that kind of detail about the nature of what she had been through all those years ago. None of them really discussed what had happened: Yukari, Amada, and herself held this horrible thing inside and based everything they did off how that defined them.

"This is all wrong, you think that maybe…some big bad shadow made a deal with us?" Asked Ann.

"Not exactly," Mitsuru said. "What was the one abnormality you saw with the Phantom Thieves, Rise?"

"They all had the missing memories, expect Ren. His thoughts are intact," Rise said. "When asked about Tartarus he reacted the same way you just did."

From her spot laying over Ann's lap, Nanako yawned. "Rise? Mitsuru? Is everything okay?"

"We're not sure," Mitsuru started. "Thanks to Ann you're going to be fine, but we might have found something disturbing."

"Ren allowed someone to do something sinister to our memories, maybe for personal gain or maybe out of fear." Ann said. She lifted her cellphone and looked at the screen, as she touched something on the home screen a slightly robotic female voice spoke.

"Now returning to the real world."

Things went all wobbly and suddenly they were in the real version of the alley where they had been in the Metaverse.

Nanako tried to get to her feet, noticing that she was in Ann's lap. "Oh, I forgot. We called Naoto."

"She probably thinks we're assholes that stood her up." Rise said.

Nanako grimaced. "I really need to start carrying my spear more often," she said. "Oh, about the guy who attacked me. It's kind of fuzzy now. But that was the real Goro Akechi. He died in the Mirror World and something brought him back from the dead to use as some kind of guardian."

Ann stared at her. "Who told you all of this?"

"The people in the Velvet Room, it's this kind of place where I go when I pass out apparently."

"That name sounds familiar, the Velvet Room…"

Rise sighed. "Probably another piece of your fucked up memory. Don't strain to remember it, we don't know what will happen. But I know where we can get answers from."

"Ren." Ann said.

"Oh, but Nanako is right, we should go find Naoto, it wouldn't be a proper interrogation without her. Man, this is almost like when we cornered Adachi, expect that had been like eight months in the making…"

Mitsuru glared at her. "No one but you was there for that," she said.

* * *

Yukari opened her eyes to a darkened hospital room. The equipment hums and beeps were absent and after days she had grown used to them. They were a source of comfort, they kept her alive. There was no light anywhere except for the moon spilling through the window.

And the moon was unusually large tonight, the sky seemed a dark green more than any other color. Maybe it was the medication in her brain that made her have to strain to put it all together, but this was how it had started back then. This was how the Dark Hour had been.

She could move. The wounds from before seemed to be gone and they weren't hindering her anymore, but though the bit of light that cascaded through the window she caught sight of a figure in the door with his back pressed against the frame. In the dull light that filtered in and bounced off the linoleum floor she could only make out his silhouette; the way his hair swooped down over one side of the face, his posture and how the coat hung off his slender frame, and the headphones that ran down the front of his chest to an object that she could tell was dangling just out of sight inside the darkness of his outline.

If she called his name. If she spoke the word out loud this would all disappear and she wouldn't get to see him. This dream or whatever it was had to be some kind of blessing. She pushed her hands down at her sides to turn her body toward the door and look at him.

"Do you remember the sensation?" His voice sounded distant, like he was much further away than the few feet he actually was. "The Dark Hour has a certain…stillness to it. Time is frozen and the only thing out in the world is you and the shadows."

"This is impossible," she said. "Makoto Yūki died. I watched you die."

Makoto sighed. "We saw a lot of death that year, but it was the only time that I think I'd ever lived," he walked into the light and it looked just like him, the way that he had looked on Port Island. "For years it was like I was living life on pause. I drifted through everything and would have welcomed death and then I had a reason to live…"

"How are you…" her eyes welled up with tears and she couldn't speak the words.

"Nyx isn't hateful. It's hard to explain, but I came here to help you with what little help I could offer."

Yukari turned away, pulling her hands in close to her chest in in embarrassment. "You always believed in me too much. I'm hardly the person that can do, well, anything. And even if I was, my life is shallow and it's just one life. I don't think you want to trust me with whatever this is," she rambled off there words and gave a nervous giggle.

"My one life saved humanity. Don't underestimate the power of a life," he sat down on the edge of the bed and there was a real weight to him, when he touched her wrist he was warm. He stroked her hair back from her cheek. In this light everything was painted in a shade of green. The whole world seemingly frozen in eerie light like some underwater ruins. "No one else will remember this. It's just like the real Dark Hour, but you have to remember."

"Remember what?" Yukari whispered.

He swept the hair away from her forehead and pushed a tendril of it behind her ear. "There'll be time to explain. Do you remember when you found me?" It was only now that she noticed the glow of his skin and the hazy light that radiated from him. His mouth parted, just barely, as if he were readying his lips to say more.

"I didn't find you," she started. "We met, Port Island…that place drew you back there."

He turned and sighed. "You once told me that we were alike, we lost someone that we loved on the same night. But there was someone else like us."

Yukari went to move and she felt the snag of there wound on her side. The skin twisting in just the right way for it to be a little too painful caused her to drop back into the bed. "You're being so cryptic, it's not like you."

"Being…gone puts things in a different perspective. You don't really have to talk where I am. Communicating like this brings back fond memories, but it can be…draining."

"Then take your time, try and put the things you want to say to me together and put it out there slowly."

"The accident that killed my parents," he started. "It killed people in another car, but they had a daughter and she's out there."

"And you think she has potential."

"Oh, I know she does," he said. "That was just a bonus, but I came here for a…another reason."

Yukari smiled slightly. "What's that?"

"One name, Yaldabaoth. I don't quite know what it means."

"Heh, well it's a mouth full, that's for sure."

"And one last thing." Makoto Yūki leaned down over her, being careful not to put any weight on her, and pressed his lips to hers. He cupped her chin in his hand, running his thumb over the soft curve of her cheek. He broke away, putting his face down right next to her ear. "You were and are now the strongest woman I've ever known. And you are important."

It wasn't even that she woke up, but suddenly the lights were just on and the Dark Hour was over. Out in the hallway near the nurse's station she could hear a woman chatting with one of the doctors. A floor scrubbing machine ran in the distance.

Before she remembered that she was injured she moved to twist to the side to get her cellphone, but there was no pain. Nothing. Carefully she sat up in the bed and opened her hospital gown to peel at the gauze and tape. There was line of blood through the center of it, but her skin was completely without injury.

Yukari ripped the bandage off, causing her skin to redden where it had been secured down. She pulled her gown shut clasping it at the middle with one hand as she stumbled over the cold floor toward the door. "Nurse. I don't know how to explain this, but I need you to come here…"

* * *

The soft pitter patter of rain hitting the umbrella that Sae Niijima's held hadn't let up since she decided to head here to Cafe Leblanc. This was too important for her to wait for the weather or normal business hours. And she knew by now that on nights like this Sojiro would often times nap in here, there was a cot in the storeroom and though it made no sense to use it when he lived extremely close he sometimes did.

He said tonight would be one of those nights.

Sae put her face right down close to glass, cupping one hand around to block out the ambient glare. A dim light filtered out through the doorway behind the counter.

"I know you're there." She fumbled through her pocket and pulled out a keyring. She selected the correct key and pushed it into the doorknob. "Alright, you told me you'd wait up." The key had been given to her under different circumstances, but they were far outweighed by this. She crept into the area between the booths and bar of the cafe.

"Sojiro," she whispered, before she realized that whispering was counter productive. "Sojiro." The sound of the door falling closed and the jingle of the bells caused a rush of movement from the back room.

Sojiro was standing in the doorway form the back with his night clothes on. He squinted before flinging his hand in her direction dismissively. "Oh, it's you."

Sae stepped in closer. "That's not what I'm here for." Resting her hands on the countertop she glanced around. "Has Ren come back here yet?"

Sojiro shook his head. "Why are you waking me up to ask about him," he said before yawning.

"Because something interesting has come up. New people in town with the same abilities as Ren and the others. From what I've seen they're honest people, but there's one thing nagging me. They asked Ren what was below the city and he answered no," she said.

"But they've gone multiple times and you thought that was kind of odd?" He asked.

"How did you know?"

"Great minds think a lot," he said.

Sae dropped her shoulders slightly. "Seriously though, I remember them having to go in there and searching, but I don't remember what for or anything about them coming back except they found nothing. Twice."

"Now that you mention it," Sojiro said scratching his head. "That place is down there, but I haven't thought of it since they first tried to explain it. I never got all of this stuff Wakaba was in to, but my memory is sharp.'

"I had forgotten it too and then it was like…a veil has been lifted off of my head. Even just hearing about it again brings back a flood of memories," Sae said. "Did you used to have a cat?"

Sojiro glanced around. "Yeah, I think that…yeah. Ren did."

"And it feels like remembering any of this is hard, something is wrong," said Sae. She tried to think back to what she knew of the Phantom Thieves before they revealed themselves to her. She tried to picture what little they had to go on about who they were. The best example of all of them together was when they sent the calling card to Shido. But for some reason Sae couldn't remember their picture on the building-side TV in the middle of Shibuya. "Someone has to be messing with our minds. It's the only thing that makes sense," she said.

Sojiro stroked his beard. "It's sad to say that we live in a world where that type of thing is considered what makes sense."


	7. Chapter 7

The huge window at one side of the hotel room led out to a balcony that overlooked the plaza that stood at the center of the Shibuya district. Here and there the domed tops of umbrellas moved over the plaza area, but the bouts of rain and the fact that it was Sunday meant there would be relative quiet.

And with the streets clear and school being out, it was the perfect time to investigate the matter of the missing memories. Ann perched in a chair, her feet pulled up under her and her thighs at her chest, as she spoke into her cell with her hand cupped around the bottom to block out any extraneous noise. "I know…it's just that Haru, Makoto, and I don't get to…I promise you there are no boys…you know we're not like that…Yes. Never…I love you too."

Rise sat on the bed with a cup of coffee the size of a small bowl clutched between her hands. Her eyes were still half closed and slightly puffy and she hadn't bothered to put on her makeup yet. "I'm guessing that you're in the clear?"

Ann nodded. "Mmhm, Sae and Makoto have gotten too used to covering for us. It really helps to have someone like Sae on our side."

Rise smiled a soft, sleepy smile. "You guys have it all figured out. When we did this we just bumbled through things. We were extremely lucky."

Nanako yawned. "I was pronounced dead."

"Oh, that sounds…eventful," Ann says with a laugh. It was too early in the morning for her hair to be up in her signature pigtails. She hadn't brought anything to sleep in, Rise loaned her an oversized orange sweater with picture of a cat's head stretched across the front. "You sound pretty alright with all the stuff that's happening."

"We've been at this for a long time," Rise said. "Still don't get how the 'stealing hearts' thing works…"

The door to the room opened and Naoto walked in with Mitsuru behind her. Mitsuru was already dressed for the day and had elected to carry her saber inside of an umbrella bag. Naoto was dressed in a long, dark blue coat that was dotted with dots of rain.

"Look at you Naoto-kun," Rise said, the smile could be heard in her tone. "You kept the hair." Naoto, who had kept notoriously short hair throughout high school was growing it out now. Every time Rise saw her it was longer. Rise rose from her spot on the bed and sat the coffee cup on the nightstand. She went to reach for Naoto's hair, but stopped just before making contact. "Can I touch?"

"Go ahead."

Rise ran her fingers through the sides and back. "Why would hide this? This is gorgeous. First the figure and now this, I'm jealous."

Naoto's face reddened. "Thank you." She said. "There was some question about the nature of what's going on here in town and from what's been reported by the local media, one would think that there's been no more mental shutdowns. Perhaps I am catching the beginning of a trend, but yesterday we police found a woman in dead in an alley, a reporter. The cause of death was unclear, but the state of the bottom looked like the crime scene photos I've seen from the mental shutdown cases."

"Everything is piling up against us," Mitsuru said. "There's just so many different angles where this going wrong."

Ann grimaced. "You're not in this alone, once we figure out what's going on with our memories, I'm sure you'll have the PeeTee support. One hundred percent."

"It means a lot, really," Nanako said with a smile.

Rise was standing in front of Naoto. "What about you? Interested in lending a hand. I know you said that S.I.S. really wasn't your thing…"

"There are matters here that it might help to have some assistance with. There's a woman who works in the crime lab. I had considered going to visit her, but perhaps Mitsuru would accompany me on that venture?" Naoto said.

Mitsuru nodded. "Everyone stay armed and at the ready. We don't know how Akechi does it, but he seems able to draw us into the Mirror World at his own whim. Nanako, until I get back Rise is in charge."

"Yes, ma'am," Nanako said.

"Get a heads up to Yukari and Chie. Then try and track down any lead you can on Ann's memories," Mitsuru added.

Rise shrugged. "I pretty much know my marching orders, just contact me if you find anything out."

* * *

The red closed sign hung against the door with the smaller clock sign below it with the arms turned to an hour from the current time. _We'll be back soon_ read the print below the clock, but there wasn't much in the way of shopping going on. Dark clouds filled the horizon threatening rain which turned out to be enough reason for Inaba to call it a lazy Sunday. Hanamura Butchers wouldn't miss any business.

Through the front of the store there was a small waiting area with a large glass window where you could watch your meat be cut. The sales counter was opposite the door and behind that was a walk-in freezer to the left and to the right the spacious office area. A butcher didn't particularly need an office of this type and for the most part once the workday started there tended to be mess that you didn't want to risk spreading to unnecessary areas—it just meant more to clean.

Youske had the talent for the work, he was the only butcher shop in the city and he was constantly being called on for large events at Amagi Inn or just special occasions of any kind. He'd been so busy that he had very little time to organize anything outside of the parts of the store that he needed kept straight. The counter in the front and the meat cooler were immaculate, the prefecture health inspectors spent more time chatting with him than actually having to address issues, and word of mouth brought even travelers into his shop.

In all of that rushing around the office area was an unfinished project. In the first few months that he was there Youske had elected to leave it vacant with nothing more than a few boxes stacked in the corner for storage. He later bought a desk and office chair and a small computer—though he wasn't sure why, it's just what a business had right?

The little bit of work that he had put in seemed to be enough for the officers use today. The closed door muffled the noises from anyone passing by outside the store front, but if they stopped and bothered to really listen they might catch wind of what was going on behind that closed office door.

* * *

The desk was cold against her bare skin, instead of warming due to her body, it seemed to by siphoning the warmth out of her. It was an odd thought to have at this moment, but it wasn't distracting Chie from what Youske was doing against her thigh with his teeth. She rocked her body slightly to the side and a new part of her body came in contact with the cold desk, but it seemed to be worth it as Youske got the message.

He pressed his face full against her, until he was sucking at the skin right where she wanted him to. Chie thrust her hips toward him, forcing his face deeper into the folds of skin as her head dropped back and she let out a short moan.

And then a yelp. Chie set up straight and hit Youske with the butt of her palm on the top of his head. "What do you think you're doing biting me _there_?" She said between attempts to catch her breath.

Youske lifted his head to speak. "But you like biting. You love my biting."

"Not there though," Chie pouted. "There's more blood rushing around down there and things are swollen and sensitive-"

Youske half-tackled her back to the desk, pinning her wrists to her sides and forcing his weight against her. She could feel the pressure of his cock through the boxer-briefs and, as he assaulted her neck with kisses, she could smell herself on his breath and skin.

"Why do you do this to me?" She muttered not expecting any kind of answer. It had been this way for over a year with them. Chie would come to town to visit Yukiko and family and then she would visit Youske and this would happen. Worse, this time wasn't an accident. He came to town knowing what it would meant. Seeing Yukiko was only an excuse.

Youske brought his lips right up next to her ear. "Do you still want to?" He whispered.

"Of course, I wanna. Jeeze, what kind of question is that?"

He edged himself inside of her until she bucked against him, trying to rush things. Chie had decided sometime ago she didn't need a boyfriend and that her job and S.I.S. were more than enough for her, but then she kept coming here for this with Youske. And despite him being annoying and a dick, she enjoyed the parts before and after the (very good) sex.

She could feel him quickening and his breath becoming frantic. Through the haze of pleasure she managed to speak. "Please…pull out before…" Youske grunted and she felt something warm and wet against her inner thigh and then pooling beneath her leg.

"You okay?" he asked cupping her chin in one hand.

Chie giggled uncontrollably. Who was she turning into, Yukiko? "Yeah," she managed before bringing up her hand to stifle her laughter. The air around her cooled the sweat on her skin as the spasms stopped. In the spots that she and Youske were touching, though, there was still a warmth.

This was gross, right? They were gross. The thought flooded over her, not really of shame that she felt, but of what she thought that she should be feeling. She was suddenly very aware of her body and other things. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. "You've got a store to open back up, right?" Chie asked in a soft, slow voice.

Youske chuckled. "It's so sexy when you do that thing with your voice."

"Hey? What thing? That's just my voice."

"That voice you use when you're not trying to be tough."

"I don't know what voice you're talking about," Chie said in a little voice.

"That one, right there."

"Stop it," she could feel the heat beneath her cheeks intensifying, but there was something satisfying about this embarrassment.

Chie was slipping back into her clothes while Youske cleaned up. He wiped the desk top down with wood polish and washed his face in the sink in the small bathroom. "Are you going home?" he asked as he was drying his face off with a wad of paper towels.

"To clean up? Hell no, I'm going to borrow a room from Yukiko. Last time I went home it felt like my parents could just smell the sex on me…" Chie said.

There was a long silence and Youske stepped back into the room. His shirt was off Chie couldn't help but check out the fine definition of his muscles. "So, do you ever talk to Yu?" He asked.

"When Rise is on the phone I say hi, why?" Chie asked.

"Do you mention any of this to him or Rise?"

"You do not want to talk sex around Rise Kujikawa. She once very vigorously described and then offered to demonstrate a technique for me…unprovoked." Chie said. "Besides, this is weird for me. You used to go on and on about how beautiful she is and how nice her legs were. When I'm like this it's not something I want to think about."

"Are you saying that you think I want Rise?" Youske said. Chie didn't reply. He begin to slip into his shirt and then put on a button-up over it. "I don't want to sound shallow," he said quietly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Youske sighed as if steadying himself to say something. "You've just grown up well. There are…things about your body that I find really hot. Like your butt and how your legs feel wrapped around me. Sorry that I…said anything. It's probably the wrong thing."

Chie kissed him. "No need to apologize. In my mind it feels like you have to be lying, but I don't know. You're just not. I know it. Her cell phone rang and she broke away to look for it. Usually it could wait, but that specific ringtone was a S.I.S. thing. "He-hello?" She said. This better be an emergency, she thought.

"Chie," came Rise's voice. _Speak of the Devil_. "Someone tried to kill us and Nanako got injured. She's fine now, but we're worried that they might come after you. Even then we need you close."

"Sounds like it's been a crazy few days out there." Chie said. "I hope Yukari is doing okay."

Rise didn't speak for a long time. "Not sure. I'm going to try and check on her before things get to hectic. How fast can you get back from Inaba?"

"Maybe three hours at the most. I could get the first train back into Tokyo."

"Good," Rise said. "If you get a chance before you go say hi to Youske and Yukiko."

"Hehe, yeah. There probably won't be time to see Youske. I've got to pack and all," Chie said with a nervous laugh.

Rise's voice was muffled as if she had tried to cover the microphone up and speak to Nanako off to her side. "You're going to have to leave the spear here, Nana. This isn't Final Fantasy, you can't just carry a spear down the street like you're Cid Highwind." There were thumps and other sounds as Rise moved the phone to speak to Chie again. "Sorry, we're in crisis mode over here. I'll seen you soon."

Youske's hand crept in around her waist and came to a stop below her stomach. "Is everything okay?" He asked.

"No, something happened with Nanako and there is just a lot going on," Chie said.

"If you need help I'm sure that we could call the gang out of retirement for one last show," Youske asked.

Chie slipped her hand under his. "No, you've got all of this here and a real life where you're doing something great that makes you happy. We've got this. Mitsuru has a pretty good head for these things. She wouldn't get us into anything that we weren't ready for."

"You're all so close now," Youske said. He rubbed the back of his head. "I kind of miss the feeling. Like, I know that there were people dying and there was danger and all, but I don't think I'll ever be as close to a group of people as I was to all of you for that year when we chased Adachi."

"It doesn't feel the same, but yeah. It's good, just different." Chie turned and kissed him on the cheek. "I've got to go."

* * *

Light was scarce after they took the stairs into the lower level where the morgue was. This underground passageway below the police station snaked around through past several doors where various things were stored. Everything was hard, and tile, and cold. Mitsuru's boots clicked against the floor as she walked behind Naoto, the sound of their feet against the floor had been the only sound between them for most of this trip.

Mitsuru broke the silence. "I would think that this kind of thing being underground would be frowned upon—in case there was Earthquakes."

"Tokyo tends to treat that sort of thing like it's both a threat, but something that they can only prepare so much for. Proper precautions are taken, but every decision isn't made out of fear," she said.

"Someone seems to know her way around down here," Mitsuru said. "I'm going to chance a guess that you've had to work with this station before."

Naoto sighed. "When the first of the mental shutdown cases started I came into town, though I kept my presence quiet. We didn't know the exact method of delivery and I wanted to have some kind of clue before I went announcing myself." Naoto felt the next question coming. "I left because there was a complicated situation between myself and the investigators looking into things. They didn't appreciate my methods, though I had an inside woman to keep an eye on the case for me."

As they neared an unmarked door Naoto slowed her pace. "It's me, Kurenai," Naoto said stepping through the door.

Kurenai smiled back over her shoulder from the microscope she was working over. "Hey, you—I thought maybe I frightened you off last night with how you kept leaving—oh," she stopped as she noticed Mitsuru coming through the door.

"There was some business that I had to attend to," Naoto said taken aback.

Mitsuru wasn't concerned with the insinuated personal matters between Naoto and this woman, though when she spotted the woman there was something familiar about her. She was sure that she had seen this person under different circumstances and in a different place.

"I'd like to introduce Kurenai to you," Naoto said. "She's a brilliant investigator for the police department forensics team. Kurenai, this is Mitsuru Kirijo."

"Oh, from the Kirijo group?" Kurenai said. "We've met before, though you might not remember me."

Mitsuru stared at her, trying to place where they had met, but vindicated in at least knowing she wasn't imagining things. "I knew I had seen you before, but I couldn't place the location."

"May second, 2015. I was laying a wreath on the the Moonlight Bridge in Tatsumi Port Island. And then I saw you standing there just staring out toward the water. I went to you and we talked for a long while, you told me that you'd lost a friend and that this was the closest place to their memory that you could find. I don't think I'd ever told you my name though," Kurenai said in a cheerful tone.

Mitsuru folded her arms. "I try not to think of that place," she said.

Kurenai nodded. "I'm very sorry to go dredging up old memories. Perhaps it's different for me since the people I lost were too long ago for me to really remember?" She was rummaging through a small box of files that was off to her side in search of something. "There it is," she said finally as she held up a folder of newspaper clippings.

"What is that?" Asked Naoto.

"Toxicology reports, autopsies, background checks - the victims of these mental shutdowns don't have any pathogen or influential narcotic in their system, so there's not any hard evidence on what is going on here. What I did find a connection to some events that have happened over the past few years. Cases of the Apathy Syndrome started to happen after May 1999…which is a little bit too close to home for me not to call it creepy…" she said as an aside. "Now these cases started slowly at first and then there was a boom of them around 2009, but I've heard tell from some that the lab on the Tatsumi Port Island was testing some experimental drug that got out."

"I was a child when that incident happened," Mitsuru said. "But I can assure that it was no drug, that didn't produce pharmaceuticals."

"And even if it did one of the first points we made was to say that the victims of our current illness have no traces of anything in their blood," said Naoto.

"There is some grounds for it to be a mental breakdown thing or something in the brain that we can't detect. Have you ever heard of the Strasbourg, France Dancing Plague of 1518?" Kurenai asked. "Dozens of people dance until their bodies simply gave out. There are records of this everywhere. And some have offered the theory that they simply were under so much stress that it caused a mass hysteria. We live in a stress filled world, so the same could be said here."

"Except that we have a definite time when the mental shutdown cases stopped before. When Shido Masayoshi confessed his crimes there wasn't another case for almost a year," Naoto said. "And the President of Okumura Foods and the SIU Director were mental shutdown victims that had connections to Shido and many of the people who the Phantom Thieves drove to confess had connections to him too."

Kurenai dropped into her office chair. "This is a lot to take in. You think that there's some large connection to all of these people and that they're steering the Mental Shutdowns?"

Shido was an ambitious man. It wasn't too far fetched for them to think that he could have orchestrated the mental shutdowns or that someone close to him had to help his case. Mitsuru could tell by the expression on Naoto's face that she was working through it too. The angle of the otherworld helped as it filled in some of the gaps. It had to be something over there that caused these mental shutdowns.

But something else was suddenly bothering Mitsuru. "What happened in May for you?" She asked Kurenai. "You were laying a wreath on Moonlight Bridge and I'd like to know for what purpose if it's not too much to ask?"

Kurenai swept a tendril of her reddish brown hair away from her cheek, tucking it in behind her ear. My parents died in a car accident on that bridge the night that the lab exploded…" she said. "I guess they must have been distracted by it or something." Kurenai smiled weakly, but slowly faded to a more serious expression as she saw the shock on Mitsuru's face.

Naoto noticed it too and something else. "Somehow, we've been pulled into the other world…"

Mitsuru hefted her umbrella and pulled her saber. "That's been happening lately. Miss Kurenai, you might want to stay behind us."

"What's happening. Hey, why do you have that sword in here?" Kurenai yelled.

The doorway went dark and there were brief flickers of light from the hall. Whatever was coming had made the air around them simply electric. It wasn't Akechi, this felt different. And when the door finally went dark and stayed dark the writhing mass of shadowy tentacles reached in. The tentacles hooked around the inside of the door and the thing pulled itself into view. It was a massive wad of shadows that fluctuated between different sizes as they pressed tight together to squeeze through the door.

A stoic mask like face stared back at them. "Wh-what is that?" Kurenai clambered up out of the chair and wedged herself between Naoto and Mitsuru.

"A sign that we're on the right track," Naoto said.


	8. Chapter 8: Velvet Interlude

The inner workings of a giant clock were louder than they had anticipated when they thought up this room. But it wasn't usually their place to do that part—they tended to work in a support capacity and really only specialized in one thing. The Velvet Siblings had been created by a god and placed in the care of Igor. And Igor himself had once been a doll, brought to life by that same god.

They weren't human, though they weren't sure what they would be classified as. They certainly looked human right down to the last detail. They considered each other family and had a strong resemblance with the pale skin and golden eyes. And they had wants and desires and minds of their own with free-will even, but they lacked the drive to be off on their own for long.

They had all left in the past, but eventually every one of the siblings returned to the Velvet Room, whatever capacity it existed in.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room."

"Welcome to the **Velvet** Room."

"A-hem, welcome to _the_ Velvet Room!"

Margaret spun around from her the easel, lifting her brush from the canvas to chastise her younger sister. "Can you please stop it?"

Elizabeth pressed her fist to her chest and cleared her throat. "If we're going to have to run this place for an indeterminate amount of time we might as well make sure we're selling it."

"While you and Theodore goof off, I'm left to do the work, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows how this 'family' works," Margaret said. She turned back to the easel and finished painting a likeness of some of the room. As she worked over the picture parts of the room just became clearer and more defined.

Elizabeth hopped down from her perch atop a stack of gears to approached her sister from behind. "You know this whole place isn't the same without the spooky music. Do you know how Igor does that?"

"That's came about a little before my time—I think someone used to sing it," Margaret said. "We also used to have a guy to paint these room designs. We need to make a painting to represent this place, otherwise we've got to concentrate to maintain the cognitive structure of the Velvet Room."

Elizabeth paced around her sister. "If Theodore can't figure out how to make the door work then we might not even need to keep this place in this form."

"The door will work," Theodore called from across the room. He was standing in front of a door that wasn't against any sort of wall and seemingly led nowhere.

"It better," Elizabeth said. "Or we'll be stuck dragging that poor Nanako girl in here to talk to her while we're unable to get out ourselves." She walked along the side of a huge spinning set of gear-works. "It's strange to say, but we don't know how very much of all this works. We're just here—the four of us were. Do you think that we're capable of death?" Elizabeth asked.

Margaret looked back over her shoulder at her sister. "Why are you so morbid?"

"It's not morbid, humans predicate their lives on death. It's what makes them have drive to create and procreate and simply live. If death is just an ending, there has to be an ending for us, right?" Asked Elizabeth.

Theodore threw the door open to simply see out of the other side of it. For some reason it still wouldn't work. "Dear, twin sister, you could lend an actual hand…"

Elizabeth ignored him. " _The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, he sealed his fate."_ She begin to recite the words from memory as if taken by some trance. " _Entrusting his future to the cards, man clings to a dim hope. Yet, the Arcana is the means by which all is revealed. Beyond the beaten path lies the absolute end. It matters not who you are— Death awaits you._ " She paused. "That proves it, right? That we might not always be here."

"That proves it," Margaret said. "I think that I'm done," she said stepping back from the canvas. "It should be enough to keep us winking out of existence before the door is fixed. No pressure, little brother."

Theodore sighed. "I'm flattered that you entrust this task to me," he said sarcastically.

Elizabeth became a little too quiet and Margaret turned to see her standing there with a sullen expression on her face. "What's the matter, really?" Asked Margaret.

"Do you think that Igor and Lavenza are dead?" Asked Elizabeth.

Margaret and Theodore stare at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. It wasn't the norm for the Velvet Room residents to be in real danger. Finally Margaret averted her gaze from the other two. "Surely if they were to meet an end Philemon would bring them back. That's if they even can meet an end. Technically we exist in a dream and you can't kill a dream."

"We can leave this place so we are obviously not actual dreams. And if Philemon were to make a new Igor would he be a different person? Wouldn't he be younger than us…newer than us? Would he remember us?" Elizabeth asks.

"This line of questioning is fruitless," Margaret said. "It does us no good to worry over things that we have no control over. All we can do is work to bring these Persona users face to face with whatever is causing this issue. I'm going to help brother with the door."


	9. Chapter 9

As the shadow squeezed its way through the door slowly, Mitsuru and Naoto covered Kurenai by standing in front of her at guard. The examination lab that they were in was a long narrow room with with only the one way in and out. And it was being blocked by this shadow. Kurenai could hardly form words at this point. Her back was pressed against the lab table.

"Wh-what is that thing? We've got to find a way out of here."

"The door is blocked and it's massive, we might be outgunned here," Naoto said drawing her pistol and taking aim at the creature.

"We overwhelm it while it's in the door," said Mitsuru. "Before it's through the door, come! On me!" Mitsuru rushes the door with Naoto at her back. She charges, jabbing her sword into the creature's center and pulling it out. When she jumps back Naoto fires a quick volley of shots into the creature. Every puncture that they put into the shadow bleeds a geyser of black mist.

Mitsuru took this time to draw her evoker and fire it into her chest. "Persona," she called. "Bufudyne!" An explosion of ice cuts through the shadow and fills the door. The ice subsides, but not before it severs a segment of the creature off.

"Persona!" Naoto said. Yamato Sumeragi lunged from behind her, casting a blast of Almighty energy centered on the shadow in the door, eradicating it. The doorway clear. "Let's move before more come."

"I'm not going anywhere with you until you explain what the fuck I just saw!" Kurenai said.

"There really isn't time. It's not safe here and this room is too small, if more of them get in here…" Naoto said.

Mitsuru grabbed Kurenai by the arm and tugged her toward the door, the other woman put up very little protest and Naoto followed behind them. The building was empty and this mirror version of the world made it seem somewhat different, like there was just a change in the air.

"That was a shadow," Mitsuru said. "They are beings made from the collective consciousness of mankind that reside in a universe that mirrors our own. We were drawn into that universe through some means. And some of us control a shadow version of ourself called a Persona," Mitsuru explained all that she could as quickly as she could.

They were full on running down the winding halls now. "I don't see how any of this is possible. Half of that doesn't even make sense."

Mitsuru glanced back to speak to Kurenai as she was going around the corner at the end of the hall, but before she could speak a fist hit her hard in the face, knocking her into Kurenai. Naoto stooped down to help the two of them up.

Takaya Sakaki stood at the end of the hallway, shirtless as he always was and standing with his sinewy body lording over Mitsuru. "Well if it isn't the Kirijo-bitch," he said with a smile.

Jin Shirato stepped into view at his side. "It truly feels like destiny, what's happening here. You are the closest thing to those who made us into experiments. You still benefit from our sacrifice, so this is only fitting."

"Yes, we've met a true power. A god of control and he has seen to it that we get our revenge," Takaya pulled the gun from the waistband of his pants and aimed it down at the three of them.

Mitsuru was still too fast and she slapped the gun away with her sword, pouncing to her feet to force him back with a series of swipes. "You Strega have no issue blaming the rogue elements of my company for what they did to you, but you never took blame for your actions. You profited off of murder. You spread hopelessness in the last days before The Fall. You shot a friend of mine and killed another; for these reasons I'll end you myself."

"But we're already dead. The power of our god has seen to us being here. Do you think you could defy a god's will twice?" Jin fired an evoker into his head forcing his Persona out and sending it down the hallway. Naoto sent hers, but Mitsuru just dodged to the side of Naoto's attack.

Takaya danced side to side to avoid each strike of the sword that Mitsuru performed and in turn she danced along following him and trying to trip him up and just score that one hit. One slice was all that it took.

Jin's larger Persona had an advantage in this hallway, Naoto was forced to stay near the wall to avoid the attacks and she had to guard Kurenai who watched all of this with a look of horror and shock on her face. In all of that concentration Jin got in close on her and kicked Naoto in the stomach knocking her back against the wall. "If we catch you, we're to take our time and make it painful. That was our god's promise of punishment for all of you."

"Naoto-kun!" Yelled Kurenai.

Naoto managed to catch the foot well enough to avoid most of the pain, but hitting the wall so hard knocked the wind out of her. "Run, Kurenai…" Naoto said just before Jin pulled the cattle prod and put it to Naoto's neck. Every nerve in Naoto's body was on fire, she was feeling pain in places she didn't think could feel pain.

When it was over she dropped to her knees to hear Kurenai scream. Naoto manages to open her eyes to see Jin taking the cattle prod to Kurenai over and over. "She's got nothing to do with this…"

Her screams echo through the hallway and drown out the sound of Mitsuru and Takaya's footsteps as they prance and parry their way down the hall.

Kurenai slumps back against the wall as Jin turns away from her and looks at Naoto. "You're like them, a waste of power. You ungrateful lot, you don't appreciate these gifts properly."

 **"I can take you away from all of this,"** Kurenai doesn't know if the voice is someone speaking to her that everyone can hear or all in her head. Her chest is burning, her body is trembling and she's pretty sure that she's pissed on herself.

 **"Thou has the power to unleash your true potential, reach upon thy face an rip off the mask. Speak my name."**

Kurenai touched her face to feel a masquerade mask trying to pry it from her face. She grasped it with her fingers tugging at it, feeling a renewed strength in her body.

Takaya managed to kick Mitsuru in the chest knocking her to the ground. "Jin, mind that one. She's up to something."

Jin held Naoto by the collar of her shirt, punching her over and over. He didn't notice, but when he turned around he saw Kurenai writhing in extreme pain. There was a mask in her face now.

Kurenai moaned as the mask began to come free, pulling at her skin and taking some with it. She locked both hands on the sides of the mask tugging at it and trying to loosen it from her skin. Warm streams of blood coursed down her face, running over her cheeks and down her chin.

 **"I am thou, thou art I…from the depths of your soul I climb, awakened and renewed to this world...the Master of Strings…"**

Jin rounded on her, but it was too late. When the mask was ripped off Kurenai dropped to her knees. "Orpheus!" An explosion of pink light erupted through the halls with Kurenai as it's epicenter. The force of the thing tossed Jin against the wall and sent Takaya crashing to the floor.

Kurenai stood engulfed in white light, eyes a maddening yellow color. Her lab coat and scrubs were gone replaced by a burgundy colored, victorian inspired complete with a feathered purple masquerade mask. Her breathing was heavy and her arms were down at her sides with fists clenched.

 **We can finally forged a contract."**

Mitsuru climbed to her feet. "Orpheus…just like him?"

Kurenai drank in the air in huge gulps as she tried to catch her breath. Her heart had never beat this fast and things had never been so clear. "I know what I have to do," she pointed at Takaya. "Persona!"

* * *

Most of the Phantom Thieves answered Ann's call. Meet at the old bridge hideout. For anyone who didn't know their history it would be hard to guess what that meant, but the causeway overlooking Shibuya had been the second place they found a home for their little team. They had been forced to move when the roof of the school drew too much attention.

Though they hadn't used this place of that long or in a long while, they remembered it. The Phantom Thieves might have been born in a restaurant after their first victory, but this was the first place that the team truly took shape.

Ryuji was there when Ann, Nanako, Rise walked up, standing with his back leaned against the railing of the causeway. He was in a loud yellow t-shirt with a silhouette of a snowboarder jumping on the front. His eyes were hidden behind shades. "You guys are a little late, Ann-chan," he said with a small chuckle. "What's with all the secrecy?" He asked.

"There's good reason for it," Ann said.

"I didn't have time to change," Haru's voice was right on top of them and they turned to see her standing in a pink sweater that was unbuttoned in the front, below that was a black dress with white trim. It looked more formal than they had seen her in the past, but somehow still very Haru. "I had a lunch meeting an franchiser," Haru said this as if it were nothing, but her cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

"Okay…whatever that's about," Ann muttered. She clapped her hands. "Okay, Yuske is out of town still, Makoto has a real job now, and I…purposefully thought it would be a bad idea to invite Futaba."

"And Ren?" Asked Ryuji. "This whole thing is starting to freak me out."

Rise stepped in to assist Ann. "I think everything will make sense in a moment," she said. She glanced to Ann. "They're all the same as you. It seems even the same amount of time has been altered…"

"Oh, I'm not sure that I understand," Haru said.

Ann touched Haru's shoulder. "Let's try this: I want you to tell me what's in the very bottom of Mementos?"

Haru gave a tiny laugh. "Oh, is that all? It's nothing, just an empty room."

"What's the meaning of all this?" Ryuji demanded. "You know what's down there. It's just an empty room. Nothing important."

"I'm getting a little worried too. I'm not sure what it is we're meant to question here," Haru said clenching her hands around the strap of her purse.

Rise nodded. "Go on, drop the bomb on them," she said.

"If there's nothing down there why did we go three separate times?" Asked Ann. "I remember going there three distinct times to look at what we all remember as nothing?"

Ryuji mulled over the idea in his head. He knew what she was describing to be the truth. They had entered Mementos with the intention of making their way to the lowest level three times and they had made it every time, but what were they going there for.

"Oh," Haru said. There were tears streaming down her face. "Does anyone remember how we first met?"

"You're in school with us and your father ended up on the Phantom Thieves radar after the Phan-Site talked about Okumura Foods," Ryuji said.

"No, but how did we meet? I was just in my father's palace suddenly and you all found me? How did I gain entry? How did I know what anything was?" Haru said. "I had a codename before Noir…"

"…Beauty Thief," said Ann.

"Why can't I remember that clearly?" Ryuji asked. "Argh, this is making my head hurt."

"Something is missing inside of us, isn't it?" Asked Haru.

Ann nodded. "Rise can sense things about people. For some reason she can't understand her Persona abilities work to a small degree out here and when she met all of us she said there was something of us missing. I think that someone altered our memories."

"Then we need to tell Ren and Futaba. Makoto too, work can wait," Ryuji said.

"The thing is that I haven't met this Futaba yet, so there is a chance that she could be in on this whole thing," Rise said.

"That's bullshit, you can't just come here and start accusing any of us of having anything to do with something like this!" Ryuji said.

Rise averted her gaze. "Ren doesn't have the missing memories. His mind reads as normal."

"But what would Ren have to hide?" Asked Haru.

"Something in Mementos," Ann said.

Nanako's voice as small as she spoke. "He was really defensive of the place. He pretty much attacked us when we went in."

"That doesn't seem suspicious at all," Rise said.

Ryuji folded his arms over his chest. "This is a total waste of time. He's our leader. He's Joker. We can just come out and ask him. He'll be straight with us. It must just be a coincidence."

Ann nodded. "We agree on that, we confront him and just ask him point blank about the whole thing and we need to make sure we keep Futaba out until the end of things."

"What do you have against Futaba?" Asked Ryuji.

"She's in love with Ren, there's no way that she would see reason on this. Futaba has been all over him since we rescued her," Ann said.

Haru and Ryuji nodded.

Nanako glanced from person to person. "How do we get Ren out? Like what will we use to draw him to us?" She asked.

"Easy," Rise said. "We just go back into Mementos."

* * *

Orpheus bounded down the hallway at Kurenai's command and barreled Takaya at full force bouncing him off of the wall. His Persona dissipated as he landed on the ground. And then Orpheus turned her attention to Jin. Mitsuru could do little but stare as she watched this woman use His Persona.

Yet there was something so correct about seeing this that she almost thought that she had at another time. She had the sense that Minato was there alongside them the way he had been the last time they faced off against Strega.

Jin managed to get his evoker to his temple and pull the trigger. "Persona!" Moros loomed behind him, appearing in a flash of light. Ignoring the fact that he even existed, Orpheus dashed past him to tackle his Persona to the ground. Orpheus began to viciously punch Moros. The punches went on until the other Persona finally vanished.

A hand grasped Naoto by the shoulder, hoisting off of the floor enough to roll her onto her side. "You okay?" Mitsuru asked. Naoto's lip and nose were bloodied, her cheek would probably bruise too from where Jin was punching her.

"I'll be fine," Naoto said as she pushed her hands back behind herself and to get stable. "Is Kurenai…"

"She's like us, but something about what she was saying doesn't make sense. We need to help her, though."

"Right." Naoto fought off Mitsuru's help and got into a kneeling position, at this point it was about the most active position she could achieve. "Persona," she said. Yamato Sumeragi flickered into being behind her and zipped through the air toward their foes.

"Persona." There was a slight pop sound as Mitsuru's evoker went off and a brilliant blue flash lit the hallway momentarily. The moment that her Persona appeared, charging at Moros, Mitsuru followed after it with her sword drawn off to the side and at the ready.

As Artemisia and Yamato Sumeragi pressed in on the enemy Personas, Mitsuru took aim at Takaya. He was bending over to retrieve the pistol that he had pulled earlier and she kneed him in the head sending him sprawling to the floor.

He rolled to a stop against the wall and clambered up onto his feet. "You had me and you couldn't do what needed to be done. You've got blood on your hands, but somehow you're afraid to kill."

"You're already dead," Mitsuru said stepping in to slash at him.

His Persona was gone again, he'd take too long to summon it. Jin ran up Takaya from the side. "We're not going to be able to hold them down, three is too many in a confined space."

"I won't run from them again!" Takaya yelled.

"We've been given a second chance, and we don't have to run from them, just this," Jin held up a bundle of things duct taped together with wires springing out of the top. Mitsuru spotted it and knew his affinity for this sort of thing, a bomb built in the mirror universe out of materials found here was just as deadly here as a bomb would be in the real world.

There wasn't time to waste. Jin dropped the device and she started running. Kurenai was just getting past the shock of summoning her Persona, she dropped onto her hands and knees huffing at the air.

"We have to go," Mitsuru said grabbing her by the arm and pulling her up.

Naoto was where she had been. "Just go on, the two of you can make it or none of us can."

And then someone very strange happened. Behind Naoto a glowing blue door appeared in mid-air. It creaked open and a blonde woman peeked out. "It looks like it finally worked," she said. The woman bent down and grabbed Naoto around the midsection and, with an unnatural strength, pulled her back through the door.

Mitsuru remembered this woman as Margaret. It had been years since they last met and she still wasn't quite sure what Margaret was. But she trusted her more than an explosion. She made for the door with a limping Kurenai and when they were all inside the door was shut behind them.

The other woman Mitsuru remembered, Elizabeth, sat atop a stack of gears with her legs crossed and a huge book in her lap. "Welcome to the Velvet Room," she said throwing her hands up as if presenting the place to their new guests. Elizabeth quickly looked to Margaret. "How was that?"


	10. Chapter 10

The blinds let in tiny slits of light that stretched across the floor and ran up the wall on the far side of the room. The air was to still in the room as the question hung there without resolution. Yukari sat on the edge of the bed with her hands clasped over her lap. It didn't matter that they had been like this so many times before, she felt the need to hide, clutching the sheets to her body.

"Are you just going to ignore me?" Ken wrapped an arm around her, pulling himself to her and kissing her on the side of the face. "I'm just not sure why this is your responsibility—even if this miracle you're talking about really happened."

She grimaced. "We've been in tough spots before, but Nyx never sent us help and if Nyx allowed him to come back to warn us. That's got to be worth taking seriously. It's probably the most serious thing right now," Yukari said.

Ken drew himself up against her, bring his chest to her back. "Everything isn't your responsibility. Despite what Mitsuru might have you believing, you can't fix the world."

She wanted to be done with this, but she knew that this was going to be an ongoing argument. Ken had stepped away a long time ago and she had no issue with that. He didn't have to come back or to even really understand why she was doing this, but she wanted him to support her. She wanted him to stop fighting her on this. Yukari pulled away from him, tucking the sheets around her body to cover herself. "You know as well as I do that the police and the army and all of those types aren't equipped to do anything about this. It's not like they have the ability to fight Shadows or the things that control them."

Ken ran his hand back through his hair and glanced off to the side. "But why does it have to be you?"

Yukari slipped back into her bra and underwear and tossed the sheet onto the bed. She had come here right from the hospital in the only clothes that she'd had. There was still a hole in the front where she had been impaled. She covered this with a jacket. "There's nothing special about me, Ken. Not when you take into consideration the whole world could be at stake."

She could see that Ken was holding something back. His lips flattened into a line and he resolved to say nothing. When she was back in her skirt and boots she went to him and kissed him on the forehead. "Have I told you that you're awesome?" She crawled part of the way onto the bed, staying up on her knees as she trapped his hands down at his side. "I get that you care about me." Yukari was right next to his ear speaking. "You're worried. Honestly we could have all died at the top of Tartarus. The world basically ended."

"Are we going to let this event define our whole lives?" Ken said. He climbed to toward the headboard and leaned up against it. "And we have the rest of our lives."

"We only have any of this because of what we did," Yukari said getting to her feet. She reached up under the neckline of her shirt and straightened the collar down. "I have to go," she said. "The others need me—"

She was heading out the door when he scrambled up out of the bed, slipping into pants and a shirt to follow her out into the stairwell that led down from his attic apartment. "Yukari. Yukari wait…" He slammed the door behind himself, his bare feet slapped at the worn wooden floor.

Yukari stopped at the bottom of the stairs, folding her arms across her chest and turning to face him. "We don't have time for this, really."

Ken grabbed at her arm, trying to bring her in closer. He wasn't willing to really take the chance of hurting her, so she easily slid away from his attempts. "Just listen to me," he said. "Just, listen."

"Don't do this, please." Yukari swallowed and turned her head to avert his gaze.

"I love you," Ken said.

"This isn't working out for you and me," Yukari said tightening her arms around herself and being sure to keep her eyes from looking at Ken. She started for the end of the hallway. "I only do two things well: act and…you know. Stay away from me before I fuck your life up any further."

* * *

The Velvet Room creaked and ticked with the sounds of a huge clock. A blue light filtered in through the slats that made up wall toward the back of the room. Much of the room was old looking wooden crates and stacks of unused gears. Mitsuru had seen this place before, though it was different the last time. She remembered that it supposedly didn't even really exist.

Margaret stood over a wooden table where Naoto laid, she smoothed back her dark bangs. "We've all gotten ourselves into a mess," she said.

"Or you could do with a hello," Mitsuru said. She glanced around the room, looking back to the door they had come in through. "Aren't our bodies going to be dead in the real world since that's how this place works…"

Theodore stepped into view. "It can work that way, but the Velvet Room is an actual place too, it's very difficult to explain. You're not out there anymore, well not in the sense that you would expect. When we drop you off you'll be back in the waking world where you were before you were drawn into the Metaverse."

"Where are we?" Asked Kurenai. "There was a door in the middle of the hall and…and another person came out of me."

"Uh-oh," Elizabeth said hopping down from her perch. "We've got another freak out on our hands."

"You're all pale and your eyes are yellow," Kurenai said. "You're vampires like in those Twilight books…or…or…"

Crossing the distance between herself and Kurenai as quickly as she could, Elizabeth slapped her hard across the cheek. Kurenai grabbed her cheek, her eyes welling up with pain and a little bit of what might have been fright. "This is okay, I know you from another timeline. This will do yo some good."

Mitsuru glared at Elizabeth and then looked to Margaret. "You people are even more unhinged than I remember."

"What a lovely way to thank someone who saved your life…at great risk to the Velvet Room, I might add," said Elizabeth.

"You hit me in the face and then you're claiming to know me?" Kurenai said still clasping the side of her face.

Mitsuru ignored this. "Wasn't there more of you creatures before? Where's the one with the nose?"

"We don't know," Theodore said.

"We suspect that he's been imprisoned or worse," Elizabeth said.

Kurenai lunged forward and shoved Elizabeth. "You hit me!"

Elizabeth got right down near Kurenai now, she lowered her face close to her and sniffed the air around her skin. "You look like her, you smell like her even."

"Who?" Asked Kurenai pulling away, a look of disgust on her face.

"The other you," Theodore said. "The you that died in 2010 saving the world."

Mitsuru felt that she knew, the year, the way Theodore looked at her when he said it. She wanted to be sure before she said the words out loud though. "What is this about?"

"She's Yuki, well the Yuki in the reality where Yuki didn't havre the Nyx avatar within him. She was on the bridge too, it's just a matter of chance who becomes the container," said Elizabeth. "It was difficult for me to lose both of you…" she looked at Kurenai.

"You're scaring me," Kurenai said.

Mitsuru stared at Kurenai. "She and I were close in that other world?" She asked.

Elizabeth stifled a giggle. "Are you asking if that _incident_ happened? Yes, you slept together over there."

Margaret sighed. "Don't frighten the girl," she crossed the room to stand near Kurenai. "Naoto needs to recover and we need to explain to you what you are and what the power of Persona is," she stopped near a tall rack of something covered by a cloth. When she ripped it away there were weapons lined up and set into a wooden rack. Margaret grabbed up a naginta, testing the balance in her hand and then handed it to Kurenai. "This should come naturally to you…"

* * *

It was early evening when the contingent of Phantom Thieves met up with Rise and Nanako at the entrance to the Shibuya subway system. They dropped themselves into the Metaverse without much discussion about what the plan was and Rise immediately began her scans. "We just rush down into the tunnel system right?" She said. "It'll draw Joker out."

Ryuji looked from side to side, his eyes moving behind the black skull mask. "If we're going to do this let's get it over," he said.

"Please let Joker listen to reason," Ann said. "He has to, right?"

"Moment of truth," Nanako said as she struck off down the stairs. She was moving at a respectable pace as the others followed behind her, but the moment that they were in the pulsing underground world of Mementos she broke into a dash, her body stooped low and her spear held up so it rested on her back to block any blows.

The others followed in her wake, chasing her down into the reddened cavern that throbbed with throbbing, ropey vine like veins stretched down toward some unseen destination.

Nanako slowed. "Anything yet, Rise?"

"Whatever is down there is out of range…or doesn't want to be found." Something changed. Rise glanced down at herself and she was dressed in a long white dress that parted at the thigh for mobility. A mask feathered white mask was over her face.

A similar thing had happened to Nanako, she was in what looked to be a black version of a traditional school uniform, there were little marks where white stitchings showed here and there. The one color on her person was a crimson colored scarf that dangled from around her neck. Slowing a bit, Nanako examined herself in the dull red glow of the nearby wall. "Oaky, I'm liking this place more and more all ready." She said.

"We need to stay sharp," Rise said. "I don't want Mitsuru blaming me for this going badly." She looked to Ann. "Is this any different than what you remember of the last time?"

Ann pushed her index finger to her lip in thought. "The whole place is more or less the same throughout. The enemies aren't worse the further down you go, it's just a long way down."

"There's these areas that look like train platforms. They're like transitional spots between two floors," Haru said. "There's even a train that comes by periodically filled with people."

"People?" Nanako asked.

"Not really people, cognitive projections of different people from up there," Ryjui said pointing up with the club he held.

"And who told you all of this?" Asked Rise.

The three Phantom Thieves froze in deep thought, trying to remember who it could have been that told them these things. It didn't make sense that it was Ren and besides, wouldn't they remember that?

"What's this mean?" Asked Nanako.

"They've forgotten more than what's at the bottom of this place, they've forgotten someone they knew…" Rise said.

A voice echoed from behind them through the red hazy light and thumping of the walls. "They keep making me force them to forget. It's for their own good, but you came here and convinced them to come to this place again…" Ren was walking toward them with his hands in his pockets.

"I figured you'd hear that," Rise said. "You got the jump on me one time…I make that mistake again."

"You don't know what you've done," said Ren.

"Why did you fuck with our heads?" Ryuji asked.

"Because it was either that or watch you be turned into mindless drones along with the rest of the people out there," Ren said throwing his arm up in the direction of the exit.

"What gives you the right to decide what happens to us!" Ryuji yelled. "Captain Kidd!" His Persona appeared riding on a boat atop translucent wave of water. He was perched there with a hand held above his head in a kind of salute. The boat zoomed toward Ren, but he dashed to the side in a flare of black coats and movement.

"Come, Odin!" Ren raised a hand high calling the power of the all father down upon them. A visage of Odin dropped into the path behind Ren astride a horse. With his spear held high, Odin rained down thunder filling the whole area.

Nanako pulled Rise to the ground rolling over on top of her to cover her from the attack. Captain Kidd was thrown from his boat, and shattered into blue mist and vanished from sight. Haru took cover underneath her Persona, but Ann was hit, the lightning sent her sprawling the ground on her back.

"You bastard!" Ryuji rushed Ren and punched him in the side of the face. The hit sent him to the ground, but he rolled and pounced back up into a squatting position.

"If that's how you want to play it!" Ren sprinted for Ryuji.

Haru was quicker than she looked, her boots pounded at the floor as she dashed in and hit Ren from the side with the butt of her ax. "I'm sorry. But you've left us no choice."

He shook the hit off and elbowed her in the chest, throwing her causing her to stumble back.

"There's too many of us for him to be able to stand up to," Rise said. "Keep him on the defensive."

Ryuji dropped his bat and came in with a series of haymaker punches, swinging for Ren's body, but Ren kept his elbows close to his body and tucked them down to block the worst part of the blows. They had been sparring for years now and Ryuji still had the same weaknesses. He was stepping in for his attacks in a pattern and once Ren figured out which leg he would lead off with next, he swooped down into a crouching position and swept Ryuji's leg out from under him knocking him to the ground.

Nanako jumped in as if on cue, she wasn't going to be able to put up much of a fight in open combat with Ren, but at a distance she might stand a chance. She used the blunt end of her spear, twirling it and ducking under it to let it spin on her back for a rotation. She closed the gap like this and every once in a while she would jump over the spear still keeping it twirling.

Ren was ready, she had telegraphed her move too much. When the spear came around he batted at it with his hands, knocking it away from himself.

And leaving him wide open for Nanako's foot. She was spinning like a top by this time, and she bounced off of the ground with one foot down and kicked him in the face with her left fully extended. Nanako bounced back a pace and stopped her spear rotations as he clutched the side of his face.

Ann pushed herself back to her feet in time to see Ren lose balance. She steadied herself, unfurled her whip, and slung at him. She caught his leg pulling him even more off center. "Now." Her voice was raspy, but she was giving it everything she could muster just to speak.

"Give it your all!" Rise yelled.

"Everyone, on me," Haru was the first into the fray with Ryuji and Nanako close behind. They brought him down to his knees, Nanako hooking the shaft of her spear around under one of Ren's arms and his neck and pulling him back until he was in a more helpless position. Haru slammed her ax handle into his stomach. As Haru stepped away, Ryuji stepped in and head-butted Ren, causing him to slunk off to the side, his body almost limp from a mixture of exhaustion pain.

He was saying something, his voice low and raspy. "Listen to me…" he said. "Just…listen."

Slender fingers took Ren under the chin, cradling his face and lifting it. Had the light been so bright a moment ago? His vision was marred by red and low drone of something distant and rumbling, like a Diesel engine. Ren looked up into the face of Rise. "Sorry," she started. "I've just been at this a lot longer."

Kouzeon appeared at her back and gestured the same gesture that Rise did, it was a small hand wave, barely more than a flourish, as she and her Persona spoke the words. "Sleep," they said in unison.

Ren knew better, he wanted to stay awake. He wanted to tell them what had happened, but his eyes felt so heavy. His whole body felt heavy. He slumped forward against Nanako's spear, falling into a dreamless sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

There had been another delay in the rail station, it had been happening more and more as of late. A woman stepped in front of the train as it passed and was crushed under it. Though it wasn't Chie's train, it was on the same route she was taking and there hadn't been anywhere to divert their train through to. They sat on the tracks waiting for things to clear for almost an hour.

It was dark when she stepped out of the station in Tokyo, she'd sat too long in the cramped train with her bags and she still wore the clothes from earlier. Youske's smell clung to her and she couldn't get what had happened out of her head.

When the train had been stopped she made an effort to contact Rise, Nanako, and Mitsuru; that got her nowhere. It was Yukari who actually answered. They arranged to meet at a beef bowl place near the station. The drizzle that had persisted through half of the trip turned into driving rain as Chie jogged through the streets with a loose piece of paper pulled over her hair in the shape of a steeple to ward off the rain.

Water splashed up around her footfalls as she stepped off of the curb and darted through a small water flow that moved down one side of the street. _This doesn't make sense, they call me to get down here and then they totally disappear? Oh man, not even Yukari seems to know where the Hell they are._

Stopping at a light gave her the chance to text. She tapped away at her phone as best she could, wet fingers were terrible for texting.

To: Yu Narukami - **Your damn fiancée ditched me. Have you heard from her?**

Narukami was slow to answer anyone except Rise and he was smitten with Rise. Since the day they met he had eyes for her and she enjoyed the fact that he hadn't known about her life as an Idol or Risette or any of that. To him, she was just this really beautiful girl.

He finally answered her with a puzzled text.

To: Chie Satonaka - **? I talked to her this morning. She usually calls again at night. Have you asked Nanako?**

To: Yu Narukami - **Your cousin blew me off too!**

Nanako was punctual and eager to please—not at all the type to ignore a voice mail or text message. Chie realized that the traffic had cleared and dashed across the road, taking a corner to head for the restaurant. Yukari was standing outside with an umbrella propped up against her shoulder. Rain dripped from the edges of it.

"Aren't we prepared?" Asked Chie.

"I just bought it actually. It's good to see you again."

"It's good to see you up and walking around. I thought you were supposed to be out of commission for another week?" Chie said. She could hardly keep herself from looking over the area where Yukari had been injured. It was probably considered rude, but she didn't care. How had Yukari done it? "You going to share your miracle cure with me?"

Yukari shrugged, her umbrella raising up slightly as her shoulders moved. Her eyes were aimed low and there was something closed up about her expression, her body language, all of it. "It's hard to explain. The side effects might just be being a horrible bitch, though."

"What happened?" Asked Chie.

The entered the restaurant next to each other to find that the place's business had barely been effected by the rain. There was a short line of people waiting to be seated and the rotation of people sitting down to tables and people leaving seemed to be in a constant motion. "Ken thinks he loves me and I told him that we were over."

"You were dating Ken?" Chie took a step back, seemingly in awe.

"Yeah," Yukari said. "I kept it quiet for a while and it was fine for a bit too. But he was just…more into to me than anyone has any reason to be."

"Man, you're too hard on yourself." Chie said. "I mean I know we all have boy trouble, but I think that only you would think that someone loved you too much."

"It's more than just that," Yukari said. "I made a promise one time to make the most out of my life…to make the sacrifice made for all of us worthwhile. Ken is wasting time with me…wasting his life on me and maybe I'm wasting my time on this whole Featherman thing."

Chie stared over at her. "Sounds like you've got a lot on your mind there. Look, maybe along the way you forgot to do what makes you happy and started worrying too much about living up to some lofty goal. You can make the most of your life by just agreeing to live it." Chie said.

Yukari glanced over at her, a slight smile on her face. "Maybe you're right, heh, you're not supposed to be the wise one, you know that right?"

"I think that I'm just thinking clearer today for some reason."

"Well, you mentioned boy problems," Yukari said as the hostess walked up to them motioned for them to follow her. She walked them to a booth table near the corner of the long bar that encased the center of the establishment. They were seated and given menus and glasses of water.

"Boy problems?" Chie giggled. "I mean it's more like man problems now, isn't it?" She asked.

"You're just stalling."

"Okay, jeez. It's me and Youske. We've been…I guess you would call it hooking up. It's casual and just sudden and it's just so good," Chie said. "Even though I feel a little dirty talking about that stuff—it's kind of a good kind of dirty, you know?" Chie couldn't stop laughing.

"Yeah, I get that. Maybe I need to talk to Ken and just…let this all play out without taking it too seriously," said Yukari. "I'm not sure if I can do that after he says that he loves me…"

"You've known him for almost half of his life when you think about it. That's got to be pretty significant for him. It makes total sense why he would cling to that relationship." Chie said.

"I never really thought of it that way." Yukari stared off into the distance. "It's just different for him…"

Chie placed her hand on top of Yukari's. "Yeah, maybe you don't have to love him, but maybe talk to him and see where he's coming from?"

"I'll do that only if you enjoy the Hell out of that time with Youske," Yukari smiled.

* * *

When his afternoon with Chie had ended, Youske had spent his time sitting around thinking for just a bit. The fact of the matter was that though they didn't define what they were they had been building to this for a long time. All of their little fights throughout school and scrappy little quips at each other had been a release of tension that they couldn't quite get out without…well this.

Their personalities were still there in the act, but it felt right when they were together and years of denying that this was what they wanted made that feeling even stronger.

Youske dragged a bag of garbage out to the dumpster in the ally in the back of his store. The shopping district was dead this time of night. His shop was closed hours ago and he couldn't help but sit there and think for so long that by the time that he started cleaning it was almost dark.

The garbage bag sagged at the bottom heavy with the blood from discarded scraps of meat and butcher paper. He hefted it off of the ground slightly testing the bag's resilience before heaving it all the way up into the air and slinging it over into the dumpster.

Back inside of the shop he cut off the last of the lights and washed his hands. When it was time to close up the office door he stopped to look at the desk where hours before he and Chie had been. He chuckled to himself.

And just then the door to the front of the store opened with a jingle of bells. He didn't turn, but called out to the person there. "Sorry, we're already closed. Time got away from me and I guess I forgot to lock the door."

There was no answer at first and he glanced back, the door was a little off center from where he was standing so he didn't see anyone yet. He took one last look at the office and flipped the light off inside. The light in the front room was still on and in this middle room there was lines of moonlight cutting through the blinds.

"Marie? Teddie? I know it's one of you. Damn, you jokes are so lame," he turned to walk into the front room and just as he stepped into the doorway he froze. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I hope you don't mind the suit. I had to borrow it from someone, though I think it fits nicely." Tohru Adachi stood near the door with a snub nosed revolver dangling from his hand. His hair had that devil-may-care disheveled look to it. The suit that he wore was a mess: a navy blue dinner jacket and slacks with a white button up shirt underneath, but the front of the button up shirt was the slacks were splattered with blood. "They don't let me keep nice clothes like this in prison—I look like shit in those awful green sweatsuits."

There were knives all around him, but none on his immediate person. Youske edged back into the darkness of the middle room. "How'd you get out?"

"Funny story, this voice pops up in my head and starts talking about control. It says that it needs me to stop those who are resisting it. Told me that I knew some of them…the people who fight against the Shadows." Adachi stepped forward to match him, glancing over at his gun as he walked. "I knew that it would be troublesome to face your group all at once again, but you're spread out now. I can take care of Yu, and that idol bitch, and even send little Nanako to meet her momma and daddy," he said snickering.

"That's where you're wrong!" There was a magnet board on the wall that held large, thick bladed knives. Youske grabbed one up by the handle, flipped it over in his hand so that he was holding the blade and threw.

Adachi tightened up and fired the gun just before the knife buried itself in his shoulder. He grabbed at his arm, pulling the knife away with a grunt. "Never a dull time with you guys," Adachi said in that raspy voice of his.

Youske stumbled back, hand clutching his chest where the bullet had ripped into him. The pain was blinding and every breath he took only seem to do half the job it should. _Was one of his lungs hit?_ He bumped into the door of the office back first, almost tripping.

Adachi lumbered forward. "Nanako's all grown up now. I bet that's real interesting. I wonder if she turned into a little stuck up bitch like the rest of them?" He stuck the gun out in front of him, training it on Youske.

"You can't do this," Youske said gasping for air as he found the office door and backed through it.

"You can't fight the will of humanity. They long for control and you're either smart enough to see it and avoid it like me, or you're worried about saving the idiots like you. And look where that got you."

The next bullet caught Youske in the throat and he reached up, he could feel his blood coursing over his fingers as he held the wound tight. His words were just gurgles now, he fell against the desk, laying over it and looking up at Adachi's wild eyes. For a flash they were yellow…a shadow's eyes. But this was the real world, it didn't make sense.

Youske knew he didn't have it in him to do anything, but he made an effort anyway. He batted at Adachi's arm and kicked out, but he weakened too fast, barely making contact with the other man in an attempt to stop him. Adachi pressed the warm barrel of the gun to his head, he could feel the heat from the previous too shots on his skin.

The gun thundered in Adachi's hand one last time ripping through Youske and leaving him lifeless on the desk in the office. He took Youske's phone and wallet, making sure to empty the money for the register too. "There's a lot of creative stuff we could do in a butcher shop, but I think that this is a perfect place for your friends to find the body."

Tohru Adachi left out the back of the butcher's shop leaving the door cracked and took the scooter parked there, the one that had belonged to Youske. The Inn Keeper girl would be a gamble, she was often with others and would be hard to kill, but the targets in Tokyo were what he had been told to go after. He could ride all night if he had to, there was something energizing about this new found partnership. Something that made him feel like he had in the TV world, but out here in the real world.

He headed for Tokyo without a care of being caught. The cops were close enough to the sphere of influence that they wouldn't remember a Tohru Adachi. That was the god of control's promise to him.

* * *

Kurenai pushed herself up to her feet, dusting herself off as to stand against Elizabeth once more. A little blood trickled down from the corner of her mouth where she had taken a particularly nasty bump from one of the attacks that hit her. She was having a hard time calling upon her Persona when she needed to and the weapon she had been given felt…unnatural.

She pressed the tip of the naginata into the floor to stabilize herself. "Did you help to train them like this too?" Kurenai said. "I don't really get the meaning of this."

"We don't have the luxury of the learning curve that the others were able to take advantage of. Things are dire now and it seems your destiny has crossed over into this world again," Margaret said.

"You guys seem powerful, why don't you fight it?" Asked Kurenai.

"Because we're not tasked to act in such ways unless there are consequences for the Velvet Room itself and even though there are at this time, the risk could be that if we were to mount the assault we might lose the Velvet Room's power all together." Elizabeth said.

"Are you saying that we're all just fodder for you?" Mitsuru said.

"You're more expendable than the Velvet Room itself," said Theodore.

Elizabeth flipped open the Compendium. "Again. Persona!" She called forth Izanagi, the black clad visage of the samurai stood behind her shrouded in blue light.

"Can we please stop?" Kurenai asked.

Elizabeth rushed her, a practice sword appeared in her hand as she moved and all the time in the Velvet Room seemed to slow down until it stopped. Kurenai was standing in the middle of the room where time was frozen and there was a feeling like there was someone behind her. She spun around and looked back over her shoulder to see a boy in black standing there, his dark hair covering one eye.

Kurenai stared at him for a moment, he was shrouded in some kind of light that almost seemed to emanate from him. She gasped. "You're him," she said. "You're the one they talked about who was like me."

He nodded. "It would seem you're the lucky one in this reality, I'm stuck guarding the gates…"

"Is it…scary? Being dead?" She asked.

He shook his head. "It's quiet."

"Why are we here, really?" Asked Kurenai.

"Even with the best of teachers like Elizabeth and Mitsuru you could never learn all that's there to learn in the allotted time. So let me help you." He said.

"How?"

Spreading his arms out, he released several cards glowing cards form within his being. The swirled around him forming a ring as they danced around him in unison. "The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed—these cards aren't just cards. They're the bonds I've formed and with them the memories of experiences. Those bonds part of me now, I have no need for the cards themselves anymore."

The cards whirled around and crashed into Kurenai's chest, all except the last one which came to a rest above his waiting hand. "The Universe Arcana," he said. "This is the only thing that protects us."

In the distance Kurenai heard something banging against metal. There was a sound in the distance like a huge gate rattling. "What was that?" She asked.

"That's the enemy at the gates. The hosts of human desires to die trying to reach out. Without the Universe Arcana and myself there to guard it, the Fall would begin and all of humanity would die."

"Sounds peachy," Kurenai said. Suddenly she had a flash of a moment with the others on the top of a tower, a huge, sinister looking entity floated above them with a mournful look in its eyes.

"Did you see it?" Asked Yuki,

"Yeah."

"Then you're ready," he said as time resumed just as quickly as it had come to a stop. Yuki was gone and Elizabeth was right on top of her. Kurenai ran through her newly acquired memories for something that could help in this situation.

"Abaddon!" Kurenai yelled with her arm out stretched. A shimmering blue light erupted from the floor around her and a pulsing green creature made of slime appeared between her and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was running too fast to stop in time and she slammed into an invisible barrier that knocked her to the ground, she landed on her butt and dropped the Compendium. She climbed up onto her knees and grabbed for the book. "You awakened the Wild Card on your own? No that can't be it." She shot a glance over at Margaret and Theodore. "One of your two playing a game, hmm?" She got back onto her feet.

"I assure you that this isn't our doing," said Margaret. "Though I think that I know who might have a hand in this. Oh, that is most surprising."

When Elizabeth turned her eye back to Kurenai she saw it. "Yuki…"

"If you need to see my hand to hand skill, we can do that now," she hefted the naginata and twirled it for a moment before coming to a stop in a defensive position.

Elizabeth resumed her attack with renewed vigor, using the practice sword to lash out, but finding that Kurenai blocked or dodged away from every blow. While Elizabeth is distracted with finding an opening, Kurenai kicks her in the stomach sending her stumbling back.

Naoto had been laying down recovering all this time. She had been discouraged from speaking or moving too much, but this was cause for her to do something. "How is this possible?" She asked. "A few hours ago she didn't know Personas existed."

"But you know how it is, I'm sure. Once you have control of your Persona gain some knowledge of it's abilities, that's not unusual. But she seems to have gained more suddenly."

"It's Yuki," said Elizabeth. "He reached out to her with the power of the bonds of friendship. He instilled in her the skill to do this."

"What does it mean?" Asked Naoto.

"It means she's ready," Elizabeth said.

* * *

There was a driving rain out when Rise stepped out of the interior of Cafe LeBlanc with her phone to her ear. She plugged her free ear to ward off the sound of rain. A smile spread across her face as she heard the voice on the other side of the phone. "I was getting a little worried."

Yu Narukami's voice sounded different through a phone. It was a difference in sound that she had grown used to, but it was the hardest part of being on the road all of the time. And she was on the road all of the time either due to her work with SIS or her career.

"You know I can take care of myself, Senpai," Rise said wrapping her arm around her waist and rocking side to side.

"Chie texted looking for you." Yu said.

"Yeah, she missed us because we were in the Shadow World, you know? Not the best cell reception. I texted her about where we were. She says she has some kind of surprise."

"Are you doing okay? Not tiring yourself out too much?"

"I could ask you the same. Without me there to make sure you get fed and keep all your stuff together," said Rise.

"Like you do any of the cooking around here," Yu laughed. "But seriously, what's going on with you?"

Rise pressed her fingers up into the fringe of her hair and let out a little forced laugh. "It's just that there's a lot going on here that we didn't expect. We met the Phantom Thieves and they're…they're in high school like we were, well for the most part. But something is wrong with them—something has been erasing their memories and is playing with the whole city. There's a massive shadow nest under Tokyo. I've never sensed anything like it."

"If you need a hand just say the word," Yu said.

"I know." Rise's cheeks reddened and even though he wasn't there, she felt Yu could hear it in her voice. "If I really needed you, I'd call."

Yu was quiet on his end for a long while and then he took a deep breath. "Mochio misses you," said Yu.

"I hope you're cleaning his litter box," she said.

Yu chuckled. "For some reason you can read my mind, so I know better than to try and get one over on you, but yeah, I'm cleaning it."

"Good." She said.

"You know that I love you, right wife?" Yu said.

"I'm not your wife yet, fiancé," Rise laughed. "I have to let you go though—Mitsuru isn't here and I need to watch over Nanako and kind of oversee things."

"How's Nanako?"

"She's brilliant. You'd be proud, she basically danced her way through a fight earlier," Rise said.

"I'm guessing she's too busy to speak right now?" Yu asked.

Rise sighed. "There's a bit of an interrogation going on here now," she chuckled.

"Okay, well tell her I said hi. And I'll call you before I go to sleep for the night," Yu said.

She made a little kiss sound into the phone's speaker. "I'll look forward to it, maybe you can keep me company before I go to bed?"

"I'm sure I can think of something to do."

Rise hit the call end button her phone and opened the door to the cafe to head back inside. The windows were covered by the blinds and the room was filled with a gathering of the Phantom Thieves that they could muster and Nanako. Makoto and Sae had returned and Sakura-san was there, Rise had just met him, but he had a lot to say about there being a celebrity in their midsts. "That boy brings the weirdest clientele in here," he had mused while scratching the back of his head with a smirk on his face.

This visit was under less than amicable terms where Ren was concerned, but Rise never stopped preforming for a fan. She smiled and bowed even though they had been dragging a knocked out Ren through the door. When she entered after her phone call things were different. Her face was straight as she looked around at those gathered.

Ren was tied to a chair near the bathroom at the back of the cafe just before you got to the set of stairs. "Anyone tried to wake him yet?"

"I thought everyone was waiting for you," Nanako said.

"You're kind of the one spearheading all of this," said Sae. "I have to admit that I never thought there would be a need for this kind of thing, I thought that Ren was on the right side of things. Even when I was investigating him it felt like he was so righteous…and rightfully so."

There was a thud from the bathroom door behind Ren, he didn't move and Ann and Ryuji crept closer to it. "Is someone in there?" Asked Ann.

Sojiro pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose and got up from the stool at the bar. He stood in his signature slouch looking at everyone in attendance and then over at the door. "Nah, there's a mop in there, it probably fell against the door."

Haru leaned down over her mug off coffee and lifted it to her mouth for a sip. "Mmhm, if only there were a way to know what Ren knows and be sure that it was the truth."

"I could try to check his mind more aggressively. It's not something that I've really ever done to this extent, but before I had control of my Persona my shadow used a power to scan everyone and basically lay waste to them and even render itself completely invulnerable," Rise said.

Ryuji's mouth widened into a toothy smile. "Man, you are one amazing lady—sexy and dangerous."

"You'd do well to remember it before commenting," Ann said.

The bathroom door was jostled again.

"Are we sure a customer didn't go in there and fall asleep or something," Makoto said giving a nervous laugh.

Sojiro stepped out around the side of Ren. "No, I checked every corner of this place when you all called and said you were bringing him here." He made his way to the door to open it and the door burst open to reveal rolling fog that poured out into the small coffee shop. Through the mist someone could be heard coughing and then an excited, feminine voice said. "Welcome to the Velvet Room!"

Elizabeth stepped out of the bathroom with her arms open wide, the compendium strapped down to her side against her hip. Margaret and Mitsuru followed her out and Naoto wasn't far behind with a new face, Kurenai. Sojiro reeled back, almost falling to the floor, but managing to catch himself. "Huh, all of you were in there?"

Margaret shook her head. "No, I assure you that's not really your bathroom anymore."

"It's an extra dimensional space. Also we might have destroyed anything that was in the bathroom. I'm hearing there was a mop possibly?" Elizabeth asked.

Mitsuru glanced down at Ren sitting in the chair. "It looks like you've had an eventful evening," she said.

"Things got a little wild there for a moment." Rise said.

"Well, we found another Persona user—one who was with the old SEES team in an alternate dimension and then we were attacked by shadows of two other Persona users in the police station," Naoto said.

"They were dead people, like your Goro Akechi. Someone is using the shadows of the dead as a weapon." Mitsuru said.

"We're finding ourselves further and further from normal here. If you had told me that back when we were first stealing people's evil desires from within them I would have told you things can't get any crazier." Makoto closed her eyes, seemingly amused at this turn of events.

Sojiro sighed. "You've all got to be careful then. This is bigger than just righting the wrongs of corrupt society and avenging yourselves…"

Sae nodded. "He's right, we've hit upon something metaphysical, more so than the Metaverse itself. This is something that seems to control that other place."

Kurenai waved. "I guess this is a bit of an odd time to say hi. I'm Kurenai Kasarugi—apparently I saved reality in another universe…"

Margaret placed an arm around Kurenai. "You might save on here just yet. Okay everyone, listen up we don't have much time to discuss matters. If you're looking to divulge the truth then why not visit Ren's Palace?"

"Ren wouldn't have a palace we could investigate; his shadow is tamed," said Ann. She remembers hearing someone explain this to her before, but she couldn't remember who. It had to be Futaba.

Elizabeth smiled. "Everyone with that strong a will has a palace. It's just that for a Persona user their palace is here," she poked Sojiro in the chest. "This is why Rise can sense people's minds and why she's the key to getting you into the Trickster's palace and this is why we can help," she explained.

"Jump inside of Ren's mind?" Haru asked. "It seems dangerous."

Mitsuru sighed. "In all of my research and the research at my disposal I've never heard of something like this."

Margaret shrugged. "You've never had access to a support Persona user who is strong enough that her Persona morphed into a battle ready mode and who's ability is active when it's not present. Now, hand me your Evoker."

Mitsuru froze, but then complied. She remembered the time in the Velvet Room before, after Yuki died. She remembered how they had just been saved by these people.

Margaret walked up to Rise. "My sister, you are a brilliant strategist. I wouldn't have thought of it ever." She checked the Evoker. "Do you know what makes the Kirijo group Evoker a unique piece of technology?" She asked to no one at all. And then she spun and aimed the Evoker at Rise's forehead.

Everyone was a little taken aback, but didn't move immediately. Then she placed the gun against her temple. "Whoa!" Ryuji yelled.

"What the Hell is this?" Asked Sojiro.

"Relax, it's not a gun. You'll see." Rise closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Go on." Margaret fired the gun and there was a small pop and an explosion of blue sparkles from the other side of Rise's head. And then Rise's Persona was standing over her with it's hands resting on her shoulders. It barely fit in the small space allotted by the cafe.

"What the fuck? You can bring them into the world outside of the Metaverse?" Ryuji asked.

Rise seemed out of breath. "Yes, with a little pain, a lot of stress on the body and the help of an Evoker. I've seen Mitsuru do it before, but I would not recommend it. I think…I think I understand. I can act as some sort of bridge between Ren and them?"

"Correct," said Elizabeth. "The Velvet Room acts as a sort of gateway into one's dreams. The connection is hard to make without the help of our master Igor, but with her we can rig something up rather easily."

Nanako was looking down at her phone on the table. "Hey, Rise—big bro is calling."

"Huh, I just talked to him? I thought I felt my phone ringing," said Rise.

"Hello," Nanako said. "Yeah, she's here with me. Oh. No, Chie isn't here yet. I—oh…"Nanako fell silent for several seconds before she hung the phone up. "He said that something's happened—a passerby noticed Youske's front door was open at his shop and…" Nanako began to tear up. "He's gone."

"What do you mean gone?" Rise moved out of her Persona's grasp.

"He's dead…it looks like he tried to fight, but," Nanako's eyes focused in on a spot on the floor and she said nothing. Suddenly she was six again hearing terrible news.

"This isn't happening. It isn't. This has to be some kind of a trick or prank," Rise said stomping her way toward Nanako. The others cleared out of the way, except Mitsuru, who grabbed Rise by the waist. "This isn't funny," Rise shouted.

"It's not a prank. Who would joke about this?" Nanako said.

"I have to call Yu. I need to…"

Mitsuru pushed Rise back by the shoulders, holding her against the counter and then she did something that no one would have expected who knew her or was even seeing her normal demeanor. "Hey, hey. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she pulled her close for a hug. "Just breath."

* * *

Yukari and Chie ran out from the station exit into the rain. Neither of them had umbrellas and neither of them really cared. As she ran with newspapers to cover their heads through the deluge, water splashed up around their feet. It seemed like the whole city would be underwater at this rate.

Chie called for Yukari to stop under the cover of a building for them to rest. As they stood there Chie checked her phone. There was a call from Youske. She smiled sheepishly.

"What?" Asked Yukari. "It's him isn't it?"

Chie blushed. "Yeah. I think I'll let him stew for a while." Youske was always too eager and she didn't want him to go thinking that she was just sitting around waiting to hear from him.

They made their way down into the transfer station and there were people milling about, dressed in protective gear to avoid the weather. The floors were slick with water and as Yukari and Chie made their way to the train something was glowing in the distance. Chie stared down the length of the station to see what she was sure was Youske and his Persona, Jiraya, looming over the crowds of people. She blinked and they were gone.

She just had him on her mind and she wasn't sure this feeling was going to pass.


	12. Chapter 12

Rise was on her knees on the floor of the coffee shop, her head resting on Mitsuru's leg. She cried quietly against the other woman as the rest of those in attendance looked on. Yu had called multiple times, but she refused to answer.

Margaret addressed everyone. "I know this is hard, but the sleep spell will not last long and there is a chance this is connected to the death of Youske. In fact, I'm sure we're all being hunted."

Rise let out a small whimper, but didn't give an answer. Nanako finally made her way off of the bench and crawled up next to Mitsuru and Rise. She hugged Rise close, Rise's damp cheek burying itself against her shoulder. "My mom's dead and my dad. And I almost died too. You're my family now and if someone is coming after us we need to do something."

"We need to warn the others. Yukiko and Kanji could be next. Or Yu…" Naoto said.

Rise's phone vibrated between her and Nanako. After a moment Rise slipped it out and looked at the call screen. "Youske." Nanako said.

"It's probably whoever is behind this, put it on speaker and everyone be very quiet." Naoto said.

Nanako hit the green answer button. "Rise's phone, this is Nanako speaking…"

"Little Nanako, just who I wanted to talk to. I'm trying to picture the fine woman you must have blossomed into," Adachi's raspy voice cut through the speaker phone.

Rise, ignoring everything she had been told, dove on Nanako to get to the phone. "Adachi, you bastard!"

Adachi chuckled. "What's wrong, Risette? Can't stand to see someone else getting any of the attention?"

"We know what you did to Youske and you're dead. Dead," Rise said getting close to the phone to yell into it.

"Don't let any fans hear you using that kind of language," he laughed. "I'm coming for you real soon. I'm glad we're going to finally get to resolve this sexual tension between us. I'm going to take my time with you." Rise snatched the phone from Nanako's hand and hung up.

She pulled herself up to her feet and glanced around at the Phantom Thieves, drying her eyes with the back of her hands. "What do I need to do to get them inside of Ren?" She asked.

Margaret pointed to the door of the Velvet Room/bathroom door. "Those who are going need to follow me, you stay out here near Ren and use your Persona to bridge the group that's going in over.

Ryuji stood up. "I know that means me for sure. I can't sit this out."

"Mmhmm," Haru nodded.

Elizabeth sighed. "Someone should stay out here in case…more trouble shows up."

Naoto winced as she moved to sit up straight. "I'm injured, I'd just be a liability."

"Well, I'm going," Nanako said. "And we need to figure out what all of this means so we have a chance at stopping Adachi."

Mitsuru stepped toward the doorway. "There's probably valuable data that I could learn from the memories in Ren's mind. Maybe it could be the key to what the Metaverse means."

Kurenai spoke up, searching to find the words. "I have all of these other memories now of people and times that I couldn't have been there for. I think that it makes the most sense for me to go home, but I'm staying here."

Sojiro scratched at the back of his head. "This kind of reminds me of back when everyone was all about taking on Shido. If anyone can work this out. I'm sure this many of you working together can."

"Shido feels like a long time ago. And now we're talking about going inside of our friend's head," Makoto said as she ran her fingers through Ren's hair. "Is this going to be alright?"

Rise took the Evoker from Margaret. "We don't really have time for those questions," she pointed the Evoker at her own temple and fired. Kouzeon appeared behind her, it's large, telescope like head filling the ceiling space of the room. In Kouzeon's hands was a kind of crown like object that was brought down over Rise's eyes. "Here goes."

The party that was headed into Ren's head followed Margaret through he Velvet Room. As they were leaving Sae called after them. "We'll hold the fort down here."

"And I'll try to get hold of the others and make sure they're safe," said Naoto.

* * *

The inside of the Velvet Room no longer resembles a clock and Elizabeth and Theodore are gone, replaced with a dimly lit circular room with a desk at its center. The outer walls are all jail cells, but only one them is occupied. Ren stands at the bars of the cell with his hands clasped around the bars, there's a rattle of chains with each of his movements.

In front of him are two children, or what look to be children, but they have the same blonde hair and yellow colored eyes as the Velvet Room attendants Elizabeth, Margaret, and Theodore. At the desk sits a man that Mitsuru and Margaret know as Igor, his wild eyes glaring over at Ren through the bars of the cell.

Igor holds his hand up as if presenting all of this to their prisoner. "Trickster, welcome to my Velvet Room," the voice is deep and almost warped in a way. Margaret starts to say something, but hesitates.

The two young attendants explain that Ren is asleep and that he should stand up straight before Igor continues on. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

As this memory fades into obscurity and the mists of Ren's brain overshadow sight and sound around them, Margaret looks to the others. "These are the memories of the one you call Ren, but the Velvet Room and Igor are all wrong…" Margaret explained.

"Could he be misremembering things or trying to hide something?" Asked Makoto.

Margaret shook her head. "It would be impossible for someone who isn't even conscious to alter their memory and this is too vivid to be wrong…"

The Phantom Thieves all seemed confused, before Ryuji finale spoke up. "Like when we first started all of this he mentioned a guy with a long nose. It seemed like he had seen something we didn't understand. That was him?"

"Yes, but that's not Igor," Mitsuru said. "The Igor I met was a quirky old man with a kinder voice. Nothing about his demeanor was malicious—despite appearances."

Margaret pressed her fingers to her lips in thought. "But if this isn't Igor, who could it be."

The prison reappeared around them, though this time it was empty. Makoto was the first one to strike off on her own. "This is a Palace right, so we do it like all the other jobs. Secure a safe route, drop the calling card, steal the treasure, right?"

"Except Ren knows how calling cards work," said Haru.

Rise's voice rang out inside of their heads. "This is the only room. There's no where for you to go," she says. "Oh…this can't be right. It doesn't make sense."

The walls around the room begin to glow subtly, a pink light encircles the floor and extends up to the ceiling of the room. Everything begins to shake and two words begin to slide around the room, written in brighter pink light that glides over the barrier.

BOSS RUSH.

The massive form of Kamoshida drops into the prison area with a thunderous thud, demolishing the wooden desk where Igor had been. His huge tongue dangles from his mouth as he dances side to side. He's too near to Nanako and she stumbles back, falling onto her butt.

Haru reaches down to give her a hand getting back to her feet, before their hands touch everyone is in their Phantom Thieves outfits. Mitsuru is wearing her black catsuit and white boa, the way she had dressed years ago in Inaba.

"Everyone," Mitsuru shouted. "At the ready."

"Relatively weak Shadow, kick his ass," Rise said.

"With pleasure," Ann said summoned Carmen with a whistle. A huge fireball erupted from the floor setting everything around Kamoshida ablaze. The shadow reared back trying to get out of the flames.

Makoto sent a burst of energy at Kamoshida's center, knocking him off balance. Haru laid down a barrage of cover fire with her grenade launcher and the artillery under Milady's skirts. The air around Kamoshida flickered with gunfire and explosions.

Nanako looked to Ryuji. "Think you could give me a boost?" She asked.

He nodded, summoning Captain Kidd beneath the two of them. They rode up into the air atop the boat and then Ryuji and Kidd threw her up into the air. Nanako flew up, spear in hand aimed down toward her juicy target.

Kamoshida's dangling tongue. Mitsuru sent spikes of ice through the air, crashing into the shadow and distracting it just enough. Nanako was on target, her spear skewered his tongue, forcing it down and pinning it to the floor.

"Now's your chance!" Rise said as a blue wave washed over the room.

"Time to punish them!" Haru yelled, she was the first one on her mark, but the others followed in, rushing the shadow and attacking savagely until it faded into strange black mist that swelled out of the center of the room and swirled around in the air to reform into a new foe.

"Madarame…" Ann said. The thing before them was huge floating paintings in frames containing the major features of a face. The eyes blinked and the mouth parted so the tongue could dart out and lick at the lips.

Haru was the first target. Madarame spit back gunk out that covered her from head to toe locking her to the ground where she stood. "Ew, oh no!"

Mitsuru called out. "Someone cover her!"

"Don't lose your momentum," Margaret said opening her compendium. "Izanagi!" The Persona dropped into being with a blue flash behind her and dashed out to cut through the paintings and send them clattering to the floor. The mouth avoided it, though, and snapped at him as he passed.

"Whoop em, Persona!" Ryuji rode on the front of the ship at Kidd's side as the Persona threw a barrage of punches at every segment of Madarame.

"This is the end of it!" Ann sent a swirling mass of flames into the center of the shadow scorching it beyond recognition. The black mist began to rise up and swirl around the room again. Nanako and Makoto worked to get Haru clean as Kaneshiro came into being out of the mist. He was riding atop his house piggy bank and slowly rolling his way toward them.

"I'm not sure how much of this you can take," Rise said.

* * *

Yukari and Chie examined the door to Cafe LeBlanc. The blinds were shut in all the windows and the outside light was off making the alley around it very dark.

"We sure this is the right place?" Asked Chie.

Yukari shrugged. "It is unless you want to question the almighty Google Maps?" She knocked on the door. They were huddled together under the cover that jutted out over the door in an attempt to avoid the rain.

A kindly looking older man opened the door with a soft smile that straightened into a more grave expression. "Chie and Yukari?" He asked before pushing his glasses up onto his nose.

"Yeah, we're supposed to be meeting friends here…" Yukari said.

He stepped back to let them through. "Have a seat wherever you'd like. I'm Sojiro Sakura."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sakura-san" Chie said.

The room was mostly empty. Naoto and a woman with auburn hair set at one booth. In the center of the room was a man tied to a chair passed out and off to his immediate side was Rise with her Persona behind her. Her eyes were covered, but she seemed to sense them.

"Yukari, Chie…" her tone was missing it's usual brightness.

"What's going on in here?" Chie asked.

"Rise is using her Persona to bridge the others into a palace housed inside of this man's head—he is Ren, the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Nanako and Mitsuru are over there with the rest of the Phantom Thieves…"

Yukari looked up at the Persona filling most of that side of the room. "Sounds like you've been getting along fine with out us," Yukari said.

"There's been some troubling news," Naoto said. "We received a call from Yu. He got news from Inaba. It must have happened right after you left…"

"What?"

"I don't know how to say this…" Naoto stood up from her seat, stepping toward Chie and Yukari. "Youske was shot and killed in his shop."

Chie laughed a weak little laugh. "If you're trying to be funny Naoto this is a bad attempt. Who put you up to this? Rise? Nanako?" She looked around the room at the others and there was a stillness. Sakura-san had a hand poised under his chin, but no one would look directly at her.

"This isn't a ruse. Adachi stole his phone. It would seem that after all we've been through he's decided that his purpose was better served trying to finish what he started in the TV World," said Naoto.

Chie punched the nearest table causing it to scrap against the hardwood floor slightly and knock a chair back. She let out a guttural sound, but couldn't form the words that she needed before slumping forward against the table.

Yukari grabbed her around the waist and with Naoto's help they got her into the chair next to the table she had hit.

Sojiro looked toward the floor and shook his head. "I can get her some tea. Calms the nerves."

"We're doing what we can to figure out who set all of this into motion. It was part of a plan. Adachi is just one piece of it," Naoto said.

Chie looked over at her, red faced with bloodshot eyes. "I'll kill Adachi myself," she said in a low voice.

"We will," Rise said. "We'll stop him together."

* * *

A pincher attack. Wakaba and Okumura's shadows had them pinned down. Ryuji, Nanako, Mitsuru, and Margaret were covering Ann, Haru, and Makoto where they knelt, most of their energy expended.

"Where are the other Velvet Room people?" Asked Nanako.

"They could be in the actual heart of the Velvet Room or this place may have separated us." Margaret said as she dodged an attempt by Wakaba to swipe at her with a talon. She threw up a hand and called out. "Thor!"

The god of Thunder appeared swinging his hammer out to clock Wakaba over the back and send her careening against the floor. A scatter shot of lasers rippled over the group, one of them catching Ryuji in the arm. He grabbed at the wound. "Shit. If we die in Ren's head…"

"Then you're just dead." Margaret said.

Rise's voice cut in. "Sorry, Chie and Yukari are here. I got distracted, but even then I'm not sure how much longer I can hold this connection."

"Now we're working on a time limit, dammit." Ryuji sent a barrage of lighting into Okumura's chest knocking him back staggering.

A streak of light cut through the air as something sailed into the room. Chie Satonaka and her Persona, Haraedo-no-Okami, kicked into the side of Wakaba sending her sprawling to the ground. Chie pinned her down by the neck with her Persona's weapon as they laid into the creature beating it. Ryuji flew in on the boat slamming into the side of the bird forcing it against the wall the pink barrier around the room.

"When did you go in there?" Rise asked.

Chie didn't answer. She rushed Okumura, slamming him to the ground and punching him viciously over and over. The shadow was gone and she was still punching him. Her fists hit the floor a few times as he too vanished. Chie's hands were bleeding at the knuckles as she sat up drinking in the air.

Ryuji jumped down off of Kidd's boat and ran over to her. "You okay?"

She fell against Ryuji's leg sobbing, her body trembling with each whimper.

And then no more shadows came and the room was changed now. They were in a huge room that circled all the way around them with floor to ceiling cages filled with people. The people just stood there staring down at the memory of the Phantom Thieves from their glowing red cages. In the dead center of the room was a huge golden chalice with small green stones and intricate patterns that looked like wings sculpted around it. Coming out of the top of the chalice and forking up into the air and reaching some unknown height above were red veins—the red veins that they had seen in Mementos running deeper and deeper into the depths.

"I don't remember this," Ann said looking up. "I don't remember any of this."

"Yes, this is unfamiliar," Haru said.

"This is…Mementos or what's below it." Makoto said. "Mementos is the People's Palace…someone said that."

"Morgana!" Shouted Ann. "Morgana—he used to call me Lady Ann and he was…a car sometimes?" She pointed at a small, black cat like creature standing in the midst of their group in the vision of the past.

"How did we forget Mona?" Makoto asked placing a hand to her chin in thought .

The Phantom Thieves of memory were engaged in a battle with the chalice. What they were saying couldn't be heard, but the fight was going badly. The red veins pumped energy into the huge chalice reinvigorating it after each round of attacks and it became more and more brilliant with each replenishment of its energy.

"You imbeciles are intoxicated by an undesired 'justice'. This is the will of the children of man who have fallen into sloth. My shine is proof the they desire my existence. As long as humanity yearns for me, I shall never perish…" the chalice's voice boomed out over the room. The treasure of Mementos declared it's victory over the Phantom Thieves.

Morgana yelled something in reply, but his voice was too distance to hear from where they watched. But the Treasure of Mementos replied in the same sinister voice. "Humanity already wishes for their distortions to be actualized. I am merely the being that will ultimately grant those wishes. Now, it is time I refrain from my place in this world, and begin to encroach upon reality itself!"

Margaret gasped, grabbing Mitsuru by the arm. "This sounds like the will of the god of control. He was never that much of a problem in the past and could be easily defeated…I don't understand how this could happen."

Mitsuru looked over her shoulder. "What—I don't understand."

Ryuji pointed at the other chalice in the memory. "You two, look!"

The chalice began to glow a brilliant blue, the light ebbing out from deep within it. Energy began to swirl around it whipping up into a fierce wind. "Hmph. Indolent, foolish humans. You shall offer your hearts to me… " the gears and parts around the cup that were part of the design began to dance and move in time and then a white hot beam sprayed across the Phantom Thieves bathing everything in blaring white light.

"Now, the time for the fusion has come…" the chalice said as the light faded from the room and the floor began to vanish. And then everything around them vanished.

The Phantom Thieves in the memory were dumped onto the streets of Shibuya, ejected from the Metaverse by the Treasure. And then the sky above darkened into a reddish gray. Huge vertebra like bones ripped up through the concrete of the sidewalks and streets and tore out the sides of the buildings arching way up into the sky. It started to rain, but the the rain that hit them in the memory wasn't water, it was thick and blood red.

"Mementos, here in Shibuya?" Asked Makoto.

None of the people on the streets seemed to notice the grotesque display around them or the Phantom Thieves themselves. The light was gone from the sky. The city shook as bones scraped their way up through the concrete and burst into the sides of buildings. "Is this what it meant by 'the fusion'?"

Some of the remains littering the city were more machine than biological creature, giant parts of arcane machinery from another world.

People around the Phantom Thieves began to talk about the weather and Monday Meetings and other mundane things. One of them mentioned that they remembered the Phantom Thieves but didn't think they were real and wondered why they ever had.

Futaba was the first person to fall, Ryuji was at her side and then Ann toppled next to them, followed by Haru and Ren. Makoto and Yusuke were the last to go down. Ryuji wasn't willing to give up, he pushed his way back to his feet part of the way before part of his person began to vanish.

And then all of them began to vanish. Ann's legs, Morgana's paws, Ryuji's hand.

The Treasure of Mementos called out through the air all around them. "This is indeed my doing. You imbeciles are about to disappear from the people's cognition. Mementos and reality have become one. Thus, those who have disappeared from cognition cannot exist anywhere."

One by one the Phantom Thieves vanished from sight, turned into black smoke like a destroyed shadow. Morgana and Ren were left alone and then he vanished leaving Ren alone. Ren rolled over onto his back, defeated.

And he vanished into black smoke too.

Ren was in the cell again standing before Igor with the twins watching. Margaret stepped closer, moving through the group to get a better look at the small girls who guarded him. "These attendants—they're not anyone that's ever been in the Velvet Room," she said.

"It appears I've underestimated you," the memory of Igor said with that same deep, sinister voice.

Ren stood up, slamming his hand against the bars. "Where did my teammates go?"

One of the small twins hit the bars with her baton. "You incompetent prisoner."

"The assistance that we provided was all for naught," the other said.

"Humans are more apathetic…and more foolish than I had thought them to be," Igor said.

Margaret stomped her foot, fists balled up at her sides. "That is nothing that Igor would say! This is an imposter!"

"The world will soon see its ruin," Not-Igor added.

"Am I dead? Are we all dead?" Asked Ren.

"You have lost the game. You were meant to bring change to mankind as a Trickster, but it seems that was too much for you. In accordance to the game's rules, the defeated must pay a price. Your life is forfeit. I sentence you to be executed."

"No!" Yelled Margaret.

And for a moment things froze, it was almost as if Ren could hear her. He looked in their direction, but said nothing.

"Executed?" One of the tiny guards in the blue uniforms said, also in shock.

"God's decree is absolute," the thing pretending to Igor said. "My experiment has come to naught, everything is over. Grant that man a swift death."

The other of the twins glanced down at the ground. "If that's what our master wishes…" she said reluctantly.

"Are you serious?" Asked Ren.

"It just means you weren't an upstanding prisoner," the same one of the twins said hitting the bars of the cell.

Haru grunted against her exhaustion to get back to her feet. "The room where we saw them fight the chalice was a prison and this is a prison too…it's even a similar shape and lay out," she said.

The other of the twins seemed less able to accept their master's bidding. She began to question all of their actions and as Igor pushed they proceeded with the execution, with Ren asking where his teammates were.

The twins continued to ignore him, throwing him to the floor in preparation for the execution. He lay crumpled there for a moment as the small girls stood over him. Then Ren's body began to pulse with energy. The Fool was said to be filled with near limitless potential and it seemed that was in effect here. Ren climbed to his feet, defiantly summoning his Trickster outfit into being and breaking the chains that held him.

The twins looked to their master, Igor, for an answer. Ren had become engulfed with the power of his bonds, surely this was enough to prove his resolve. The thing pretending to be Igor just smiled, trying to drive his servants on in their assault. One of the girls opened a large book, flipping through the pages while the other one readied an attack. Ren was blasted by a wave of shimmering magic. Something was wrong. All of this time standing there and he couldn't move. The two girls spells on him over and over.

"That book, it bears the mark of my sister…Lavenza." Margaret said pointing to the compendium the twins had.

The two girls continued their assault on Ren until he sunk down onto one knee, still unable to lift his blade or fight back, he struggled to keep his head held high, his body slipping closer toward death.

One of the twins stayed the other's had. "Master? Have you forsaken humanity?" Asked one of them.

"We are wardens, those who rehabilitate prisoners…" the other said.

"What?" Igor asked.

"Something speaks to me in my mind. Our true duty is to not kill."

And then a voice called out from somewhere in the room and everywhere at once. "Help."

"Sister…" Margaret whispered.

Ren spoke to the voice. He recognized it from somewhere and then it became clear. The twins realized who they were, they instructed Ren to use the fusion system of the Velvet Room to restore them.

And against Igor's will they were brought back into being by him or brought back as one singular being.

"My name is Lavenza. I was torn apart by a malevolent will and took the form of those twins."

She was taller than either of the two who had been her halves, but she not as tall as Margaret, Elizabeth, or Theodore. She was in a blue dress, reminiscent of a mixture between those of her sister, with a hair band stretching across her white blonde hair. She had both her eyes, seemingly taking her sight from each of the twins in turn. Lavenza had called to the Trickster, Ren before she was split in two, but she could hardly reach out with much will.

Lavenza spoke to Ren. "I believed in you. I knew you would make it thus far. And to the scoundrel who has swindled my master's name…Your lies shall work no longer now that my sight has been restored."

"The game isn't over yet!" Igor's imposter said floating up into the air, his eyes glowing yellow. "Whether the human world is left as is or destroyed and rebuilt, it is all sport to me."

"If you're not Igor then…" said Ren.

"If I were to put it into the words that you can comprehend, I am the Holy Grail that grants wishes." Not Igor said. "No, it may be more accurate to say that I am a god who responds to desire and holds dominion over man. I hoped seeing a righteous thief vanquish evil would spur mankind to change their own indolent hearts. However the result is as you know—the masses have made it so none of it has transpired. Humans should be met with ruin," said the imposter.

"You brought fourth that answer. But to be frank, inmate, I believe it may be worth reevaluating you. A human has reached the Holy Grail and has seen through my true identity…You've surprised me often enough. That cannot be done by a foolish commoner. You truly were a prisoner that did not bore me."

And then he offered a deal. The Igor that was just the god of control offered to return the world to it's prior state. He promised the Phantom Thieves will be praised and famous, but that the rest of humanity would remain trapped in their delusion of wanting to give up control.

Ren's voice rung out through the room. _"I had fun with my friends and they were gone. There was no way to save you guys besides this deal. Lavenza said that it was the true mark of the Trickster—I betrayed her and the real Igor, though I had only just met her and never met him. The people that mattered most to me were erased from existence…"_

"Our memories were stolen because Ren wanted to save us?" Ann said.

"I'll do it, if my friends are returned okay." The memory of Ren said.

"The one you call Morgana is a liability, created by Igor as a last ditch effort to force you to see the truth of who I was. I cannot allow him to return," said the imposter.

 _"Who was I to bargain with a god, we weren't getting the worst deal. Mementos would be contained and we would be semi-safe and normal again."_ Ren's voice said.

"How could he do this?" Asked Margaret.

"He was scared." Makoto said.

Ren's voice said one final thing. _"But you were persistent. You insisted that we return to the Mementos later and forced me to push to the bottom with you. We discovered the Treasure again and again he defeated us and forced me to make the deal. And months later we did this again. We were no closer to defeating him. He was truly above reproach."_

"Never give up bro!" Yelled Ryuji.

Nanako sighed. "This is a memory though. We can't change this right?"

"We can't just stand here and do nothing," Ryuji said.

"I hate to say it, but he's right," Makoto said.

Margaret sighed. "We should be able to do something," she flipped through her compendium. "Persona!" She called out to a stored copy of Atropos sending it to attack Igor's imposter. He was thrown off balance and Ren and Lavenza looked back.

The group of them stood there the Phantom Thieves, Nanako, Mitsuru and Margaret. Ann yelled with her fists down at her sides. "You saved us, but we would never give up. That's the promise we made."

"You don't have to take this from this bullshit _god_ anymore. The Phantom Thieves aren't alone anymore," Chie said climbing to her feet."

"She's right, we've had some experience defeating a god," said Mitsuru.

Margaret shook her head. "That's just it…this is a direct result of that. When Nyx was blocked from this world by Yuki it created a power vacuum. Without her to fulfill humanity's desire to die it left room for someone else to usurp their desires. Control filled that void," Margaret said. "We should have foreseen this…Yaldabaot is behind this all."

"You're…here? But how?" Asked Ren looking at them all.

"It's complicated!" Ryuji said.

"Guys…are you hearing me?" Rise's voice filled the air around them. "Something's blocking me out. I don't have control of the connection anymore…I've been trying to reach you for a while now."

A sinister laugh escaped Igor's form. "This would be amusing, but this game bores me—If you wish to finish it and face me once and for all, you know where I am…"

"You're a memory though," said Haru.

"I am a god, girl. My control and power are absolute. You exist because I allow it. You are known to the public because I allow it," said Yaldabaot.

"You're no god," said Margaret. "You've just taken to calling yourself that. You've styled yourself in this manner, but you're something far more sinister. You speak of control and choosing a Trickster, but you are the true Trickster here!"

"Foolish Child of Philemon, your strong words are betrayed by your fear. Were you any match for me your masters would have stopped me. I will snuff you all out in due time…"

The memory of Igor vanished and they were all dropped into Cafe LeBlanc again near the door of the restroom.

Rise a dismissed her Persona and dropped to her knees. "That was almost too much…that thing had control of me. I was still making the connection, but I couldn't speak to you or even break it. I was locked in."

Naoto and Kurenai were standing, shocked to see them all back in the room. Yukari was at the far end of the bar. "I take it that it didn't go like you expected, judging by the things Rise was saying?"

Ren's chair rocked as he fought to move. "Oh, you tied me up," he said. He glanced around at all of them in turn, expectantly.

The bindings has been made with one of the old whips that Ann carried for backup, she moved to untie it. "I get it, I really do. You felt like you had no choice, but you also really let us down and, well, you broke my heart." The last few words out of her mouth were much quieter than the others.

Ren stood up massaging the spots where the bindings had been. "I saw a chance to survive, for all of us to survive."

Ann made sort of sarcastic huff sound.

Makoto touched Ann on the back. "We had no idea there were other Persona users out there besides us and Akechi. Ren really had no support system, but…" she turned on Ren and slapped him in the face. "Who knows how far that things influence has spread? Who knows what _this god_ has been doing for the past however long you've been messing with our memories. You erased a whole person who was dear to us…"

"Morgana," said Haru. "I couldn't remember how I had met you. I came because Morgana showed me."

"He was a pain in the ass," said Ryuji. "But he was our friend."

Ren lowered his gaze, but still thought to ask about who wasn't there. "Where's Futaba?" He asked.

"Like we could turn her away from you," Ann said. "She doesn't see reason when it comes to you and we knew that if we brought her in on this she would never be able to separate her crush on you from the job."

"It's probably for the best," said Ren.

"Yes, because someone still has some respect for you," Ann said with a biting tone.

Chie had been standing with Rise up until things petered out, now she stepped forward with her hands on her hips. "Even if you're mad at him for whatever it is he did, we still need to face a god. We need all the help we can get."

Yukari sighed. "I'd prefer not to have to lose someone in order to stop one of these things."

"That instance is exactly why this whole thing is going on," Elizabeth's voice came from inside of the Velvet Room doors and she stepped out into the open air of the cafe. "My sister hinted at just that during your encounter with the truth in there," she pointed back over her shoulder at the door she had just emerged from.

Sojiro stood with his hands poised on his hips shaking his head. "This is making my head hurt."

Mitsuru took a seat at the bar near him. "There was a creature that Yukari and I had a hand in trapping, Nyx. It's like Death, but the embodiment of the very concept of the end really," she said. "It was called by the hopelessness of mankind, but it was part of the natural order of things. My guess would be stopping Nyx somehow left us open to this," Mitsuru said.

"You would be correct," Elizabeth said.

"So this thing is more powerful than Nyx?" Yukari said with a frightened look in her eyes.

"Possibly, but there's like three times as many of us as there were back then," said Mitsuru.

"And you've the help of the Velvet Room attendants—those of us that are left, but the full support of what we can muster," Margaret said. The chance of some huge unknown danger below the city didn't seem to bother her to the degree that the idea she had no idea where her master and other sister were. Yaldabaot had seen to it that Igor was removed and he had split Lavenza into two, who knew what had happened to her after that?

Ren got to his feet. "Maybe we have a chance to fix this world, after all," he mutters.

"True, but it will be longer before you fix what you've done," Sojiro said.

* * *

The thundering drum of the bass pumped through the narrow hallway that led to the outside of the club. The hall was black with hints of neon from the glow of the backlights interacting with the paint on the walls. It was all that Kanji had to navigate the hall with. He searched his pocket for a lighter as he made his way toward the heavy wooden door guarded by two huge men.

"Shit, where is it?" he forced his hand down into the corner of his pocket only to find a small hole with his finger. He nodded at the bouncer as he passed, turning his back to the door to press against the bar and open it.

It was warm out, the air was still steamy from the storms earlier and there was a musty smell like dirt and water and dead plant matter. Without looking up, Kanji checked his phone and turned to the girl who stood alongside the wall next to him. She wore fishnet sleeves over her arms and her hair was died a neon blue color. There were piercings in her eyebrow, nose, and lip. "You got a light?" He asked. "I got a hole in my damn pocket and…"

He had been looking down and then looking at her, but for the first time he was seeing past her. The girl bent down to get a better look at him. "Hey man, here you go." She pressed the lighter into his chest and Kanji grabbed at it weakly.

The whole world around them, the whole of Okina was changed. Huge spikes of what looked like bone were reached up into the sky like buildings. Bodies of impossible beasts, long dead and forgotten rested on the top of nearby buildings and the moon was larger and blood red. Everything was cast in a ghoulish light.

"Thanks," he said glancing around as he took the lighter. The girl didn't see any of this. If she did she wasn't reacting. "Nice weather, huh?"

"Heh, if you're into that kind of thing. Clear night, no clouds. I prefer my nights a little dark," the girl smiled.

And she was wrong, the sky was dotted with red clouds that moved past the crimson moon. Could only he see this? He lit his cigarette, maybe there was something in one of those drinks?

Then something shadowy and made almost of mist leapt in behind the girl. It jabbed hooked arms into the girl's back, she stiffened up, her eyes widening in horror. As her mouth fell open blood started to run down her lower lip. The creature made of shadow, Kanji could see it now, leaned out and held a hooked appendage to its face where its mouth would be as if to shush him.

Kanji couldn't do nothing, as the girl sunk to her knees he whirled around looking for anyone that could help, the main entrance and the line to get in was around the front and only a bouncer was back here, his back to the incident.

Grabbing for the huge man's shoulder, Kanji pulled him, trying to turn him around. "Hey man, you gotta do something," Kanji said. "This girl is dying!"

The bouncer turned to see the blue haired girl fall to the ground, blood running from her face and pooling out in the street. Kanji ran to kneel by her side, seeing the shadow thing backing away slowly as he moved toward it. "Shit, what was that?"

There were more of them in the distance, the first one that he had seen joined them and they watched him. No one else could see this, but this wasn't some alcohol induced hallucination.

* * *

The Inn had been empty enough as of late that Yukiko didn't really need to worry about the hours when visitors were were supposed to be using the bathhouse area. There weren't enough people to compete with one another for control over the area and those that were staying in the Inn were mostly uninterested it seemed.

She would go down after hours of working and playing entertainer to a hand full of guests to just unwind and relax. Dip her hair into the warm water, rest her back and soak. In her younger days the idea of coming in here and just being completely nude seemed like some sort of challenge. Yukiko had been a shy girl, but not in that she was afraid of what others would think, but more because she was never really sure what to do. It was a constant fight being proper enough and occupying her space in the world. Chie was the tough one. Chie had always been more brash and outspoken—some of that had transferred over to Yukiko, but a lot of the old her was still left.

Though she could bathe here now and not fret too much about if someone saw her. The water was too cloudy for that anyway—the constant rising steam obscured anything.

The thought of Chie just brought thoughts of Youske, he had been murdered here and from what the others had told her it was Adachi. Yukiko couldn't leave the Inn tonight, but she had made arrangements to go deliver a gift to Youske's father and say her condolences for their loss. These were problems that she had thought herself rid of after the last time, but that was the same thing she had thought the first two times. Had it not been for the death of a friend she wouldn't have stepped in this time.

And there was what it must have done to Chie. From her understanding Youske and Chie had grown…intimate. They both had reported the events to her with varying levels of detail.

"I'm always really here, Chie," she muttered into the void in the hopes it would reach her friend.

She opened her eyes and for the first time noticed the moon. It was larger than before and red—not the normal red that it turns from time to time. This red moved and pulsed like it was covered in blood. Yukiko stirred against the side of the tub area and something caught her eye off to the side.

A finger shaped tower forked up into the night sky. There shouldn't have been any buildings that tall visible this far from Okina. Whatever this was it had ribbed edges, but it was too dark to make out the finer details of whatever it was.

Yukiko was unsure about exactly what it was that triggered this reaction, but she stood up from the water of the outdoor bath and grabbed for her towel. With her eyes adjusting to the steam of the water she could barely see, but it had stained her skin so she knew it to be there. The water was red and thick like blood. Her body vanished just below the surface of the water marred out of sight by whatever it was she was standing in.

Splashing and flailing, she managed to clamber out of the water and onto the edge of the grounds around the outdoor bath. For a moment she lay nude on the grass, unable to really worry about what if someone saw her or what the staff might think. When she looked back to the water it was still _not water._

She rushed inside and threw her clothes on, covering the parts of her body that she wouldn't want seen as best as she could, but with speed being her most pertinent concern. She rinsed off in a shower and dressed in a hurry. _Seeing things,_ she figured. _I must just need fresh air. That's it._ She headed for the front door and stepped out onto the front steps of the inn looking out into the street.

For a moment before her eyes adjusted to the dark of the street nothing was out of the ordinary. Then she stepped off of the front steps into the street and something clattered underfoot. She jerked her foot back and glanced down at a street covered in tiny yellowing bones. Bigger bones were further out from where she stood.

She let out a gasp and stumbled back, catching hold of one of the columns on the front porch area. Yukiko stared down into the street, "What…"

There were footsteps just on the other side of the door to the inn. "Yukiko, is that you?" Her mother stepped outside into the balmy night air, her shoes clicking against the stone that made up the front steps of the inn. She drew in a big breath of air and glanced around. "Something the matter?" She asked. "You look troubled…"

With a nervous smile Yukiko forced a small giggle. "I'm fine, really. There's just, yeah—something on my mind," she brought herself to say finally. Yukiko glanced down at the bones that littered the street. "Does anything seem…off to you?" She asked.

"It's unseasonably warm. That's for sure." She touched her daughter's shoulder. "And you were still out there in that open air bath. You've always loved that thing."

Yeah, it's nice. Gives me a place to think," Yukiko said. _She doesn't see any of this. This has to be some kind of dream, I'm sleep and in the water still. That's it._

Her mother turned to go back through the door, her hand lingering on Yukiko's shoulder. "Don't fret too much. Whatever it is you're worried about has no right to steal your sleep…"

"I'll be in momentarily," Yukiko said. When her mom was inside she pulled out her phone and opened a group text message for the old investigation team. She tapped away at the screen before realizing she had included one too many members. Youske wasn't here anymore. Ted was on the other side of the planet, but he might at least have some perspective on this thing.

 **Something is wrong here. The street is littered with strange bones that no one else can see**

There was a pause as someone began to write back. It was Kanji.

 **Shit. Same in Okina. Some kind of smoke monster killed a girl. Looked like a shadow.**

Rise was the next to say something. **We haven't been outside in a while. There were some complications here. Just in case Mitsuru is deploying help.**

Yukiko looked up into the sinister form of the the moon red and huge overhead. "Hopefully this is just localized."

* * *

"You've been all over that phone. There an emergency somewhere?" Satoshi Narukami looked similar to Yu, the same shimmer in his hair and dark eyes. His face was considerably older looking, there were deep lines at the corners of his mouth and the small pinches of crow's feet beside his eyes. He put his hand on the table, his skin was thin and pale like rice paper.

"You're embarrassing him," said Misaki Narukami. She was the younger of the two, her face still had a youthful glow and there was something of a sparkle in her eyes. Her chin came to a soft rounded point and her lips were meticulously maintained stain of the color red. Most women her age would put their hair up into a bun or keep it short, but she wore it in a shimmery black perfectly cropped line partway down her back.

Yu lifted his glass of water and eyed the surface of the water. A fly of some sort had died in his water and lay on it's back floating between two ice cubes. "Damn," Yu said.

"We know you're worried about what happened with your friend. It was dreadful—we're not much comfort I know," Misaki smiled a sad smile and put a manicured hand across the table to touch his. She was always trying to change the subject to something more light hearted. She always had to put her spin on it. "It's a shame Rise couldn't be here."

Yu pushed his water glass away. "Life of an Idol," he sighed. "Still, I'm sure that she'll be there for whatever kind of memorial that Youske's family holds."

"Do you know why anyone would do something like this?" Asked Satoshi. "Inaba always seemed so safe, but after those murders a few years back with the people hanging from the power lines and now this…I don't know."

"I would have told my brother to take that sweet daughter of his and leave if he were still alive," the woman looked up longingly and sighed, shook her head and turned her attention back to the plate of salad in front of her.

Yu's phone went off again, vibrating against the table. "Mom, dad—excuse me," he turned the phone over to read it. "Huh…bones outside?" He stood up from the table, bumping the chair back as he moved.

The restaurant was on the third floor of the building, so the windows looking out had an expansive view of Okina and what he saw was horrific. There were massive bones littering the city, laying on the buildings and covering streets. Cars and people seemed to pass through them, but they could easily be seen to look as solid as his own hand. The eerie red moon hovering in the sky painted the whole scene a ghastly color red mixed with the lights of the city to accent the curves of the massive skeletal remains of something bigger than any creature Yu knew.

He knew better than to cause a scene, but the initial gasp couldn't be helped.

"Yu, sweetheart, what's the matter?" His mother asked as she moved up behind him, tossing her napkin into a heap on the chair.

"Oh, I just thought I saw a cute dog…" Yu said. He fished his wallet out of his pocket and tossed several thousand Yen on the table. "I've got this meal covered, we need to go."

Satoshi stood up from his chair. "What's going on?"

"I can't explain. Just follow me and be careful," he said this, not sure what else to tell them. Did he say that the world was filled with the dead. No one in that restaurant had noticed the things going on outside and all that he could think was that he had to get to Kanji and Yukiko. Rise would be safe with the other members of SIS and the Phantom Thieves of Heart (apparently), but Yukiko and Kanji were cut off from the group.

He went for the stairwell door, holding it open for his parents before stepping in. The entirety of the stairwell was covered in ropey veins that stretched up the center set of rails, they pulsed and glowed with a red light. He guessed that his parents didn't see this either.

"We have to get to the car," Yu said leading them out across the road. It was just a feeling at first, a prickling sensation on the back of the neck, but then he could actually hear the sound of them as they amassed around him.

Shadows.

True, he had taken on more of them than this many times, but not without practice or his Persona. And especially not while guarding two people who couldn't see what was being fought.

The mist congealed into a creature ahead of him, a huge shadow with a massive dangling tongue that barred the way to the car across the street in the parking lot. Smaller shadows closed in around them and he pressed back into his parents to shield them.

"What's gotten into you?" Satoshi asked.

The shadow lashed out, jerking its head back and then slinging it down to throw it's tongue out in a straight line, it slammed into Yu and his mother knocking them both to the ground.

Satoshi stooped down to help them and then his eyes went wide with fright. "What happened out here?" As he grabbed his wife's hand he could see the ground covered in bones behind her. The world was different now, the darkness seemed to move and pulse and there were creatures like he had never seen creeping ever closer.

"Stay close to me!" Yu said. His mother screamed behind him, fighting to get up from the bones and dust herself off. No sword or useful items. He hoped this last ditch effort worked. Holding up his hand he concentrated on the well of his soul, where something resided. A power he hadn't used in some time. "I hope this works. Persona!"

Blue light encased him like flames, his body surged with power from somewhere. This power was working here in the open without an evoker. He was face to face with Izanagi. The amor clad Persona gives him a nod before dashing into the fray.

His parents were at his back, watching as the creatures move toward them with slow, jerking motions. "What…what is all this?" Satoshi has enough of his wits about him to ask the question. The world around them is slipping into chaos, but the people on the streets don't see any of it. Izanagi slides in behind them, brandishing the his weapon, and bringing his shoulders up as his stance took a more defensive pose.

"This is…all very complicated, but I've got it under control. Keep Mom standing, get ready to run," said Yu.


	13. MISSION REPORT: Extraction

**9:34 P.M. Local Time**

 **Greater Okina Area — Under the Control of the Japanese Government, Airspace Clear.**

 **Author's Note:** _There was a bunch of awesome computer code here describing the thought process of a robot, but the site didn't like how it was formatted so it had to go..._

The door at the base of the aircraft shot open, driven by a powerful compressed blast of energy that sent it sliding into the space between the outer hull and the inner cabin. This larger craft was an automated drone designed to fly over designated sections of Japan and deploy the smaller craft into the local area.

As the wind ripped through the cabin, flooding over everything and moving past the neuro-skin that covered much of her body. She could feel the cold against, though it was just a collection of sensory data from different datapoint located int the outer shell of this body. Her clothing whipped and swished as she was lowered down from the through the door with the deployment craft strapped to her back—the clothing had been her own choice, she found a long time ago that despite the fact that she lacked the nude features of the female form, that many people were more welcoming when she put on clothes.

So Aegis wore a black thigh length dress that was wide, flow skirt to allow easy mobility. The dress was black and shimmery, which she had decided that she liked. But she kept a red tie for a shock of color running down the front. That tie was flapping up and hitting her in the face and although she knew this shouldn't annoy her it did.

It was human to be annoyed.

At some point she had made other modifications to be more human; she recounted them as a measure to pass time:

 _June 13th, 2013: Added ears to body and removed domes on either side of the head. Retained the metal band strap that passed over the head._

 _March 4th, 2014: Decided that I like long hair, like Mitsuru's. Installed long hair, can be tied back during combat situations._

 _October 26, 2016: Closer observation of men's magazines have showed me—_

The craft was jostled as she dampening clamps released their hold on the smaller vehicle which she was strapped to. A harsh buzzing alarm filled the air, cutting through the sound of the wind and the engines of the plane. And then she was released.

She was falling toward the ground at an incredible rate of speed, the fine tuning of the landing vector and any compensation for unforeseen variables would be totally up to her. The halo that covered her eyes acted as a reticle for targeting and piloting the craft to the ground.

"You're coming hot, be close. This is a populated area," came a voice over the com system. People with the Kirijo Group were monitoring the drop as the oversaw any other insertions she took part in.

"Applying airbrake and adjusting yaw control. I'll use the body of the craft to slow descent," Aegis said.

Through the cameras in the front of the small ship she could see the ground approaching fast. There was something wrong though. All around the city of Inaba and far off in the distance she could see huge structures that hadn't existed before. It wasn't until she did a closer scan with the infrared that she realized what they seemed to be.

"These readings—the whole area seems to have been changed by something. There are mega structures all over the place. They appear to be mineral compound similar to hydroxyapatite in structure though the ratio is more in tune with that of…bone?"

"Just look for the group we detected earlier, snuff it out and you'll have free roam to complete the rest of the task," came the voice from the control center.

One of those people who she found was Yu Narukami, he was the intended target that she had been sent to protect. The other two seemed to bare some resemblance to him, but it was of no consequence.

Yu needed help, hit was surrounded by shadows with one particularly nasty one leading them. They didn't have a full form yet, they were more like black shapes wiggling and writhing. But she could pick up the energy signatures from them.

"I have visual confirmation of Shadows. Contact." Aegis let out a burst of automatic gunfire to rip through the shadows and scatter them. This craft wasn't battle outfitted, but it had enough weaponry to draw attention.

When the ammo ran dry she released the clamps that held her in place and dropped from the craft, sending it on a collision course with the biggest of the shadows. She free fell for just a few feet, and then the boosters in her body and the air brakes brought her upright and allowed her to fall into the street near Yu.

Her feet created two small divots where she landed. "Yu Narukami, Mitsuru sends her regards." The large gatling gun that acted as the heavy load-out for these drop missions was affixed to her back through a concealed port. It pivoted on a swivel and whipped around so that it was resting over her shoulder in a position to be fired. "Please, stay back," she said to the two unknown civilians.

"Mom, dad, this is Aegis…she's complicated," Yu said as Izanagi swiped at another approaching shadow turning it into mist.

"I come bearing a gift," a compartment on her large gun popped open and she extracted a katana from it and handed it to Yu. He grasped it at the handle, checking it's weight and balance in his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you both," Aegis said to Yu's parents before turning with her hands out in front of her and opening fire with the finger guns and the Gatling gun on her back.

Aegis's kept the shadows pinned down, spraying them with gunfire in a broad sweeping motion that kept them staggered.

Other people on the streets were screaming and running for cover as the bullets pounded into the lines of shadows. Yu yelled to Aegis as he slashed through a shadow turning it to a thin black mist. "They can't see the shadows," he said.

"It matters very little at this point. The shadows are able to see and hurt them," Aegis said.

"For their sakes we need to end this fast," Yu yelled. He raised his hand high, calling out the name. "Thor!"

The God of Thunder appeared in a blue flash where Izanagi had been. In a burst of light and thunderous sound it ripped through waves of shadows, bringing the big one down so that it was barely holding itself up.

"Now, it's weakened!" Aegis yelled.

Aegis and Yu dashed in with weapons drawn. Aegis pumped round after round of bullets into the creature until Yu slashed it away with a swift strike across the neck. It dissipated into a black cloud.

"We need to keep moving, find the others," said Aegis. Yu's parents were frozen in fear, staring at the two of them. "The authorities will be here soon and we have to find the others…"

"How far does it stretch? All of this damage?" Asked Satoshi seemingly noticing it for the first time.

"The whole world." Aegis said. "I can explain more of it as we go."


	14. Somewhere in ?

_A short while earlier..._

This isn't an actual place the way that you can plot it out on one of your goggle maps…

…Poogle maps? Or was it Googie?

Atlas. You wouldn't find this place on any atlas or globe. It isn't a place of material beings, though that doesn't make something any less real. A dream doesn't exist in the real world, the room where I once presided over power doesn't actually have a fixed spot in the limited scope of things that humans refer to as 'reality'.

This place is a Dirac sea of consciousness. The energy that makes up the collective desires and longings of the universe swirl and mix here in what one might mistake for deep space if they were to see it, though that could just be the way that I visualize it. It could appear as a vast ocean. Or it could appear as a space filled with light stretching on to infinity.

Either way I can navigate this space and retain my material form. I can find my way well enough and I know where I am going. How, you might ask? Well, quite simply put—I'm amazing.

My target resides in the deepest reaches of desire. This is her domain, though she's hardly a real _she_. The "she" in question is an immense amorphous shadow made of the essence of finality. We've never met in person, but it could be said that she's profoundly affected my life. Through actions brought on by this being I came to abandon my post and seek out my own answer. My master didn't protest and I have yet to hear from his master, but I know that there will always be a need for me at my post should I want to return, but the event that changed my life taught me that this was something that I had to pursue.

Once I had passed into this section of the collective unconscious it became clear that there was great power near, but now there are palpable waves of energy washing over me. This is the edge of its true influence; I sense the dread of the end of all things and the joy of change.

All things are changed by Death and though it is the Arcana that was never meant to be, it is one of the most important.

Though it's impossible she hasn't sensed me here, probably at the moment that I entered this domain of unconscious thought. She will have thought the conversation that we are about to have. She has seen this possibility.

Her current form is that of a vast mucilaginous, black, void of writhing…stuff. A form is something that is necessary for when you intend to be seen and in here nothing can see—well except me.

"Ahoy there," I call out across the expanse in what is less of an actual shout and more of a mental one, a though directed loudly at my target.

"So, you are the tiny doll made of dreams? I've felt you before, albeit from a distance. You are one of Philemon's?" Her voice is a twisted mix of male and female and a sexless, dreadful scowl. Cowl?

Growl…whatever.

"I'm merely an elevator attendant who has neglected her duties," I answer. "My brother has accompanied me, but I needed him to move past the gate that guards this place."

A face appears in the blackness, a white smiling mask with black, emotionless eyes. This face is reminiscent of the avatar that was fought atop Tartarus. It knows I know this face and Nyx's smile deepens. "The gate made of the boy who became of the Universe? I seem to remember him, though memory and time aren't so…concrete in this place."

"It's only been a handful of years, I think you're remember much more than you want to let on," I say.

"Perhaps. But it does intrigue me that you would breach the gate to come out here with the risk that Erebus could have followed you here."

"Why do you think I needed my brother? He could hold that thing or destroy it if need be. Sure, he lacks my penchant for bloodshed, but he isn't one to be underestimated. Though we need Erebus alive. I hope he remembers that."

Nyx considers this for a moment, her face twisting slightly. "This intrigues me more. For what purpose?"

So she hasn't foreseen this? "A crass sibling of yours and my Master's master, Yaldabaot, has taken it upon himself to play a cruel game against the world with a stacked deck. Where you seek to bring about their desired end, he seeks to see them fall under his control and become hopeless puppets."

"Yaldabaot," Nyx says. "Yaldabaot has always lacked a certain respect for what we are and he has been forever in the shadow of those who could more easily gain their power through the desire of people. Sagari and Philemon and I are more…worried about the order of things."

"You play fair," I say.

"But in the past Nyarlathotep has overstepped the bounds expected by us and even broken contracts with Philemon. And you are interfering with the very world that you are sworn not to, are you not?" Asks Nyx.

"Yaldabaot has taken Igor and my sister hostage and he wields powers to grant the Wild Card, which means that to some degree he has ensnared Philemon too. If he is to gain further power he could come for you or Sagari or the others. I left my position for personal reasons, but even were I there I would not be able to turn a blind eye to this level of transgression."

Nyx smiles. "You attempt to talk me into an alliance with you, this is clear to me from the moment that you crossed the gate. I sense the desire inside you and there would be much of you to convince me if this were even to be considered as a possibility…"

"You think that the god of control wouldn't want to control the other gods? Then you are stupider than I had first thought," I say.

"Shit," Nxy catches me off guard with that.

"I know, drink it in. Elizabeth is right again."

Nyx sighs. "Though that may be, I cannot lend my strength to any cause, allow me to test your resolve so that I may know your worth." Nyx begins to glow through the darkness of the gelatinous blob and from that light emerges the form of the Avatar.

"Then so be it, your fate is in the cards…" my thick leather bound compendium appears at my side opening to that page with my Persona of choice, the only on that it could be, Thanatos. I open one gloved hand letting the Arcana cards of my tarot deck swirls out from my palm.

"The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, he sealed his fate…entrusting his future to the cards, the same way you do, he clings to hope. For your sake let us make sure that hope is not misplaced…"


End file.
